Divergence
by Chris Kenworthy
Summary: Michael and Isabel accompany Tess when she leaves Earth in the Granilith, but nobody realizes that Alex's fate is not what it seems, until a familiar face walks into the Crashdown Cafe.
1. Chapter 1

Author name: Chris Kenworthy

Title: Divergence

Coupling/Genre: original CC.

Rating: PG-13

Disclaimer: I didn't create 'Roswell', I didn't make it a TV series, I didn't originate the plot of 'Departure' or any of season 2. So there.

Summary: Liz keeps Tess from leaving Earth alone to go to Antar, not realizing that there's something that nobody knows about Alex's death.

Warning: Buckets of angst all about, to start.

Dedicated to my wonderful, amazing, fantabulous beta, TrueLovePooh!!

Author's note: This starts with some 'unaired scenes' from Departure... and then splits off into an alternate timeline. Hope it won't be too confusing.

As he walked down the narrow, rocky path from the Pod Chamber, Michael frowned and flipped through the white letter-printed pages, already dog-eared (for all that they had been printed out less than twenty-four hours ago,) and bound together only with one of those big black alligator clips. That bit about 'no stopping the countdown' was starting to worry him. And why did it have to be a twenty-four hour warmup sequence?? Too much could change around here, in much less than twenty-four hours. Who built a spaceship this way?

But it was clear from the translation of the book that the question of who built the granilith, and why it worked the way it did, was a mystery even to the natives of their home planet. It was capable of remarkable effects, such as travelling through 'warp space' much faster than any ships the Antarians themselves built could, but they didn't understand it.

"It's a gift horse," he muttered to himself. "You don't ask too many questions, you just use it when you have to, and be grateful." It was clear enough that they did need to use the granilith now, or that Tess did, at least. If her baby... Max's son, was being poisoned by the earth's atmosphere, there wasn't enough time to look for another way off the planet, a less risky way... and they probably shouldn't be leaving the granilith behind anyway. He just had to be careful to play by the mysterious relic's own rules.

"Do you still have your nose stuck in that??" Max asked from a few paces behind him. Michael looked up and smiled faintly. "We should have found a translation for that years ago -- it might have taught you some good study habits for West Roswell High," Max continued, and Michael grumped, not feeling in light enough of a mood to take the ribbing with good grace. Also, it looked like West Roswell, or high school in general, was losing its last bit of relevance in his life. Where they were going, who would care about Victorian literature or American colonial history?

So instead, Michael replied by changing the subject to something that he saw as more important. "There's some remarkable stuff here, Maxwell," he said, waving the pages. "Star maps, cultural history of our homeworld and the nearby planets... detailed instructions for 'steering' the granilith through warp space. I'm just trying to make sure that nothing goes wrong."

"We won't need any of that," Max said softly. "The flight route from here back to Antar came up as a default. It'll be a piece of cake to get back."

"And what about what we find when we get there??" Michael asked softly.

Now doubt flashed across the face of the dark-haired young man. "I don't know... we'll just have to hope for the best and face the situation once we get there. Tess has instructed the granilith to lock onto her home continent for the landing. That's one of the places that Kivar's forces wouldn't be able to intrude unilaterally."

Something about the way that had been phrased, the same way that Tess had put it, was nagging at the back of Michael's brain. "Well, there isn't any harm in doing my homework, is there?? Just in case some of it comes in handy?"

Max tried to reach out and take the pages away from Michael, but he resisted. "Man, you've got one day left on earth and better ways to spend it," Max insisted. "Come on." They had reached the bottom of the path now, and his mother's car was already speeding away with Isabel and Tess inside it. The Jeep was parked nearby. "I'll give you a lift to the Crashdown. Liz and Maria will be there, I bet, and I think the two of us need to see them."

"Okay," Max said as he moved the Jeep out onto route 380, heading west. "I think the last time I was really up to speed on your investigation..." he laughed a little bit, wryly, "was at the wake, when you were telling us all about having discovered the concert tickets." He sighed. "Could you maybe summarize the way things went from there??"

Liz looked up at him in the rearview mirror for a moment and let out a low moan. "Okay, let's see... first there was the delivery guy who was the last person we know of to see Alex alive. I'd confronted him out on the field near the memorial, and the next night, the night of the funeral he came to the Cafe, showed me the credit card receipt that Alex had signed... except that he didn't really sign it. It was just a bunch of ones and zeroes... binary code. I didn't know what to make of that at the time, though once we got to Las Cruces the clue started to fall into place. At the time, all I really knew was that I'd latched onto something definitely weird."

"Okay, what next?? Maybe just the key points for now, we can get into the details later on. It's a long drive."

"I know... I've just been to Las Cruces and back, remember??" she pointed out. "Okay... well, I started to think that I needed to learn more about his trip to Sweden, that everything seemed to focus on. So, I managed to get a phone number from the student exchange records from the high school..."

"That was what almost got you and Sean DeLuca arrested, wasn't it??" Max said.

Liz's sidelong look this time was full of frustration and a little tinge of anger. "No comment, because that isn't a 'key point.' And at the same time, I was trying to go through the Swedish embassy, to find out more about the building in that photo of him and Leanna -- I was trying to figure out where she lived, but the building didn't seem to connect to anywhere on his itinerary. The number from the exchange records, when I finally got through to someone there... thank goodness he spoke a little English, but he didn't know any Mister Olsen. The sales slip from the florist's was a dead end, and that was when I was bound and determined to go to Sweden myself, though I'm not quite sure what I could do to beat out a lead on Alex once I was there. Go to the address on the high school's records and pray that there was someone there who knew what I was talking about, I guess."

She took a deep breath and continued. "I was just about to board the plane when I got a call from the embassy on my cell phone -- that the building in Alex's souvenir photos was torn down years ago. I didn't understand, but I realized that the answers I was looking for weren't in Sweden... that Alex might have never been there." She laughed hollowly. "I had to make the woman at the airline feel very sorry for me to get her to reverse the ticket transaction -- it wasn't supposed to be a refundable, not even partly."

Max nodded and made a vague 'I'm still listening' sound, deep in thought. Right then, when Liz had been about to board her plane... he had been holding Tess in his arms. How did he feel about that combination? Had he been mistreating Liz, abandoning her, because of what had begun between himself and Tess Harding? He couldn't stop to think about that now.

"I told Maria about all that, how I thought Alex had never even been to Sweden, and she was the one who really broke things wide open. She went to Derek Swift... you know, Alex's friend from computer lab, and he was able to track the originating IP address of the emails that Alex had sent her while he was away... and the internet address mapped to a dorm room on the University campus at Las Cruces. Maria and I went up there, searched the room, but it was empty, no clues. Some guy came by to try to find out what we were doing, and he said that a guy named 'Ray' had been living in that room for a little over a month in the winter... and the physical description kinda checked out with Alex. He didn't know much about 'Ray' though, except that late one night he'd seen him coming out of the Litvack building -- that's the John A Litvack computer sciences complex. Oh, and that 'Ray' acted very antisocially."

"We were taking a small break from the investigation, attending a free concert on the campus when I spotted a girl that looked exactly like 'Leanna' from Alex's slides. We tried to confront her, but she took off and jumped on a bus that pulled away before we could get to it. That's when we ran into Michael, and I imagine he's told you about the rest since then... and possibly why he was in Las Cruces at that particular moment. Maria's told me that she told him where we would be, and that she would call him if there was danger, but..."

"He started to worry about the two of you a few hours after you'd left," Max filled in absently, his thoughts still on the story that Liz had told so far. "Realized that if there was a crisis, it would probably develop quickly and he'd be no help such a long drive away, so he followed after." There was a short pause. "If you could just go over the rest of it really quickly, that would be helpful."

"Um, okay..." Liz frowned in thought. "I talked to someone in the computer science department, we found out that Alex had been trying to transcibe a very strange language... there was some fragments of the source material in his account on the university file server, and we were able to identify that it was alien stuff like the map and the book, but no trace of the translation was there. Maria tracked Leanna, or Jen Coleman, down in the student newspaper, and we paid a visit to her dorm room. She wasn't there, Maria pretended to be a classmate who Jen had offered to lend some notes to, and we got the address of a house out of town from her room. When we got there, the place was a mess, there was an alien booby trap, a floating red doo-hickey that Michael just managed to push out of the building before it exploded, and a computer with the translation on it. That's where we printed it out from, and I made a copy on disk too."

"Okay, thanks." Max sighed. "I guess this can't have been close to what you expected to find when you first started investigating Alex's death, can it??"

"No," Liz said with a tired sigh. "It seems... a little undignified, or something, doesn't it?? That he was somehow convinced or forced to do this thing for one of your enemies... probably someone trying to find out the secret of the granilith, and probably he was killed in an attempt to cover up the secret."

"Yeah, I've been thinking the same thing," Max agreed. "At least there's nothing in the book that gives away the location of the granilith. There's instructions for using it, but those aren't much use without finding its hiding place."

"How did Jen even get ahold of the book??" Liz asked. "That's what I've been wondering. And she has to be an alien, but obviously she doesn't know the language if she needed Alex and the computer to decode it for her."

"Hmmm." Max mulled that over. "Well, we can't read the language because we're hybrids... there's been no-one to teach us our heritage, not really, and if there's any kind of instinctive learning faculty for Antarian in our alien DNA, then the human side is probably messing it up. Maybe Jen is another hybrid, prepared by our enemies to immerse herself completely in human society."

"Just like you guys," Liz repeated. "It makes a kind of sense."

"As far as the book... maybe there's more than one copy out there. Or maybe Jen was able to break into Michael's apartment and make a duplication of it, before we started keeping all of that stuff up at the rocks." He sighed. "It's a long way yet to Las Cruces... maybe you should get some rest."

"I'm not tired," Liz replied. "In fact, I could probably take over driving if YOU need some sleep. You've been up all night reading the translation, haven't you??"

Max looked over at her with half a smile. He didn't really need to answer that question. "Okay, I'll pull over."

The small, dark red phone sitting on his desk started to ring.

"Hello?" Michael asked, almost before he had finished scooping up the handset out of its long, slender cradle and bringing it to the side of his head.

"Oh, hi... hi, it's Isabel." The voice coming across the electronic lines was uncharacteristically thin and tremulous.

"What's wrong?" Michael kicked himself mentally as soon as the words were out of his mouth -- they were an instinctive reaction, but he didn't really need to ask what would be bothering Isabel, today of all days. The answer was supremely obvious.

"I... I nearly broke down crying, just having lunch with my parents! Only just managed to get well out of the room before I lost control. How can... how could I ever tell them... say goo ---" The rest of the sentence dissolved into dry, racking sobs.

"I... I thought that Max said something about the two of you making a videotape for them... and avoiding all the melodrama of an in-person goodbye," he said slowly. To himself, Michael was wondering what a basket-case he'd be if as well as having to leave Maria behind, he had parents that he loved as much as he knew Max and Isabel cared about the Evans'. Maybe better this way, he repeated to himself softly.

"I know... but I'm not sure if I'm even going to be able to get through that. I keep thinking... of what their reaction will be when they watch the tape... and that just makes everything worse."

Michael thought for a second, not coming up with anything that seemed great. "Well, maybe work your way up to it or something, I dunno. You're going to be going by the cemetery, to visit Alex's grave one more time, right??"

"Yeah -- yes, I think so."

"Liz and Max are nearly at Las Cruces by now, but I bet Maria and Kyle would appreciate spending a little time with you today... and remembering Alex."

There was a pause for several seconds. "Thanks, Michael. That helps."

"Anytime."

"See you tonight." And with that, the line clicked off.

Michael replaced the phone handset, then went back to staring at the sheet of paper in front of him on the desk. It was divided down the middle, with each column headed by a title in block capitals. "THINGS TO GET READY - MARIA, TONIGHT" and "THINGS TO PACK: LEAVING TOMORROW"

"Thanks for coming," Isabel said, as they got out of the car, surrounded by the quiet, peaceful green of Peaceful Pines Funerary estates.

"No problem," Maria answered, stretching a little and looking around. "It's weird how everything still reminds me of him... like the weather. This is just exactly the kind of day that Alex loved most. Bright and sunny, warm but not too hot."

Not much was said as the three of them walked over to the marker bearing Alex Whitman's name. Suddenly Isabel blurted out... "I still see him. I know this sounds crazy, but I talk to Alex, and he answers me. Just sometimes."

Maria and Kyle traded a look, not quite sure what to make of that. "Like a dream, or like a hallucination??" Kyle asked.

"More the second one, now." Isabel took a deep, ragged breath. "I had really vivid dreams right after he died, but they've gone now. Over the past week or so, though... I'm not sure if I'd describe them as hallucinations, or vivid imagination. It's always when I'm alone that he shows up... and so intense and clear that I can see every detail on what he's wearing... the outfits change from occasion to occasion."

"I don't think we'd better get ready to haul you away to the looney bin," Maria admitted. "It isn't exactly normal for us, but maybe that sort of thing is more common with... your people. Max got haunted by that guy at Christmas, after all."

"I know that it isn't really Alex communicating with me," Isabel admitted. "Partly because the dialog doesn't have his unmistakable Alex zing... just what my poor subconscious can try to whip up as a pale imitation. But... I can still *feel* him around me, somehow. That still feels real."

"Yeah, I think I know what you feel," Kyle whispered slowly. "I was down on the south side the day before yesterday, near his place, and the vibe from him was so strong it nearly set my body resonating."

"Hey, am I the only one missing out on this??" Maria complained for a moment. "Maybe it's an alien thing... you've been changed, Kyle, after all. Not that we really know what that means..." She sighed.

After a little, Isabel mentioned, "You guys take the car when you're ready to go, okay?? I want to stay later -- I'll walk down to the bus stop when I'm ready to go."

Maria apparently realized a hint when she heard one. "Want to see if Alex will show up once we stop crowding you?"

"Yeah, kinda."

Maria ran a hand over the grass growing above the coffin and started back to the car. Kyle rubbed the headstone for just a second.

Liz sighed as the wind blew her hair back. They had done as much as they could at Las Cruces -- she had proved, rather to her surprise, that Jen Coleman was a human, and probably had been framed of any involvement in Alex's death. She and Max had gotten into a huge argument in a science lab on the campus, and she really didn't want to leave things with him like this. They'd gone through too much.

"Do you remember the trip back from Marathon??" she asked impulsively.

"Umm, well yeah, of course I do," Max replied evenly. He was still cautious, she realized. Still guarded. He wasn't saying much because he didn't want to get into another shouting match either.

"Was a night kinda like this one," Liz mused. "Desert wind blowing in from the south..."

"It was daylight when we were coming back from Marathon," Max corrected her, with a smile on his face and in his voice. "It was daylight when we got to marathon, because of the delay with the road closure, and Kyle finding us at the Sultan's hideaway motel." Max laughed. "Also, the wind was from the east south-east that whole time, I remember it distinctly. It tends to be from the south-east in early fall, but this was more easterly than usual."

Liz shook her head. "You just always have to be right, don't you??"

"No, I don't *have* to. I just usually am."

"Well, I remember driving with you at night sometime," she said. "Not sure if it was on the WAY to Marathon, or that crazy night we found the first orb, but... it was a good memory, and I was trying to hold on to it."

"I have to admit..." She could tell from something in Max's voice that he was trying to keep from bursting out into inappropriate laughter, "my best memories of that night don't have much to do with driving."

"Oh, really??"

"Nope." He shot a fond look at her sidelong. "More like you and me, all alone in Michael's apartment. BEFORE Maria burst in looking for him."

"Okay, yeah..." Liz could feel herself blushing all the way up to her forehead. "That's a good one, I admit. What else??"

"Hmmm..." Max thought about that a second. "Practically nothing from the last year... how depressing is that?? Our golden age is well behind us." He sighed. "Shooting pool at Senor Chao's."

Liz let herself sink into that memory... taking the opportunity to bend down, close to him, to judge a shot... watching the way his body moved as he worked the cue... and knowing that he was focused on the view the same way when it was her turn. "Yeah, that was good." Their bodies nestled next to each other as she tried to teach him how to sink a double bank... the way his face looked with that ridiculous smudge of black chalk just below one eye, next to his nose. "Our first kiss, on the balcony, the night the heatwave broke."

"The first time you visited me in the UFO center," he offered, "and I told you that we could have had the conversation out in the front room." Liz laughed at that one.

"I know how weird and unfair it is, Liz," Max suddenly blurted out. "That after everything we've been through, and everything that's gone wrong this year... it's coming to an end way too soon, and kinduv in a bad way. But I have to do what I have to do. You understand that, don't you??"

Liz paused an instant, then grunted a noncommittal sound and turned away. He would just have had to ruin things like that... classic Max Evans.

"KYLE!!" Tess nearly screamed her lungs out, and Kyle snapped his head around, from where he had been staring towards the door, at nothing at all, lost in memory... and re-focused, staring just as hard at Tess. "He was here. Alex was here!!"

She shook her head dismissively. "What are you talking about??"

"Alex was in this room!" Conviction was slowly growing, replacing surprise. "The day he died. I can't believe I didn't even remember this, I must have blocked it out..."

"Kyle." There was something in Tess' voice that was subtly desperate. "He wasn't."

Her quiet denial did little to deter the train of excitement that was growing in Kyle. "No, he was... Alex was here!! I have to tell my father." He got up to leave. This could be a clue that would blow the whole case open...

"Kyle, come here!" Kyle shouted for his father, but turned around as Tess stood up and followed him. As they stood there, facing each other, Tess screwed up her eyes shut and concentrated... and Kyle had a sensation of a mental discontinuity, like that momentary feeling of falling when you're trying to get to sleep.

"So..." Tess smiled sweetly. "What were you saying??"

For a second, Kyle wasn't sure. He tried to review the conversation, but the last thread he could grasp seemed curiously distant. "That I'm gonna really miss you," he said, smiling faintly and hugging her. "And I wish you didn't have to go."

They drifted back to sit on the bed. "You know why I have to go, Kyle," Tess reminded him. "If I had my way, I really wouldn't want to leave you, either. But it's for the sake of the baby."

"That part, I have to admit I don't get," Kyle admitted. "You can breathe the air here, and Max can. Why can't junior??"

"You never were good at biology," she commented with a shake of her head. "Okay, try this analogy with, umm, with dog breeds." Kyle snickered softly. 'Human beings are poodles, and Antarians are shitzus. Max and I are both first-generation crossbreeds - pooshis or whatever they're called. We have a particular combination of poodle and shitzu traits that always come out because they're dominant, and we always have one poodle gene and one shitzu gene balanced against each other. Makes sense so far??"

"Uh, I guess." Kyle really *didn't* like biology, and was having a hard time keeping from laughing at the pooshi analogy, but he'd asked the question and was pretty much stuck to sit through the answer.

"Now, the thing is, pooshis don't breed true to those same characteristics among themselves. Based on random combinations, the second generation child will get a much more thouroughly shuffled mix of poodle and shitzu characteristics from his pooshi sire and dam... he'll be a mutt." Tess made a cute face. "Not that Max or I mind, of course, but a breathing Earth air is probably like the poodle tail... all poodles have it, and pooshis get it too, but mutts have no guarantee."

"Huh," Kyle muttered. "Wonder of wonders, that actually makes a kind of sense."

"And also," Tess reminded him, "Max and I grew up in those pods until we were about the biological age of six or so. We didn't *have* to breathe earth air directly, maybe, until we had grown that much and were capable of taking it. But we have no idea of what it would take to put my baby into a pod, even if we wanted to." She sighed. "Bottom line, we don't have enough answers here, and an alien world is the only place to go to get them."

"Okay." Kyle sighed a little. "Well, do you have... this is going to sound kind of corny, but do you want something of mine to take along with you? I get the feeling that luggage space is going to be limited, and you probably won't be able to bring the flowers or anything, but..."

She laughed softly. "Already ahead of you, lamptrimmer." She got up and opened the top drawer of the dresser a little way, pulling something out. For a second Kyle couldn't identify the little loop of black fabric, and then...

"Hey!! I lost my deposit at the rental place for not bringing that back!!"

Tess giggled softly, keeping hold of the black bow tie. "Well, it's mine now." She sat down, carefully protecting the trophy as if she expected the football player to make a grab for it. "I know that things didn't play out exactly like either of us thought, but I'm glad that we went to the prom together."

Kyle shook his head. "Drop me an astro-mail sometime if you can, okay rocket-girl??"

"Count on it."

Michael sighed a bit as he started to feel himself... "come down," he supposed -- a little further. The way Max had explained it wasn't as accurate as Michael would have expected; either that or things were different because Michael had 'done the deed' with a human girl, instead of another hybrid.

There was the floating sensation, sure enough... but hot electric energy?? Not so much, unless it was a strained metaphor. He felt a sense of calm, of warm pleasure, and vaguely an impression of a deep and abiding peace that was connected to everything in the universe. And he saw things, heard things... things from his past, things that might have been from the deep past before he was around. Things that would be in the future, and things that might have been but would never come to pass.

Michael stretched. The floating was gone now, and most of the calm, but he still felt warm and happy. And he felt Maria stretch too, next to him.

"I think we just took a huge step in human-alien relations..."

When Liz finally slipped through the front door of the Crashdown and disappeared, Max let his brave face slip, and struggling against the tears, he let his head droop forward and screwed his eyes shut.

She didn't sleep with Kyle. The sentence rang in his head. He had refused to believe it for weeks, and then finally accepted it, for the sake of saving his friendship with Liz as much as anything. But it had been a lie, the whole time. A pantomime, played out for his benefit.

Why had Liz done something like that?? The question led reasonably clearly to the answer. Liz must have taken it upon herself to push Max away, to force him to accept his 'destiny,' no matter how much the realization of that fate would hurt her personally.

"She loved me that much," Max whispered, not believing it at first. And how had he repaid her?? He'd treated Liz so cruelly ever since Alex's death, maybe as a way, deep down, of punishing her for the betrayal that had never really happened.

He shook his head, trying to clear away the tears, and started the ignition of the Jeep up again. There was so much he could still treasure that he didn't deserve. Like Isabel... he had been about as mean to Izzie as he could possibly imagine, throwing her dreams away out of hand and threatening to do the most despicable things conceivable to keep her by his side in Roswell. And yet, as soon as she had heard about the problems with Tess and the baby, she had immediately flipped around from her (justified) campaign of petty revenge, and had supported him unconditionally. In exactly the way that he had NOT been there for her after Alex's death.

And now she was willingly giving up even more for him than he had tried to take away, Max realized with a guilty shock. Isabel was terrified of saying goodbye to Roswell and their parents, of leaving planet earth and everything she knew behind, to try to make a fresh start on a world that she didn't know anything about, except that many people would identify her with a famous traitor. But she was going along, without any objections, because that was what it would take to stand by her brother in his hour of need.

He parked the car and headed inside. It was early in the morning now, and there was no sound except snoring from his parents' bedroom. But when he approached Isabel, sitting cross-legged on her bed, arms folded around herself, he could tell that she was quietly sobbing to herself.

"Wha-aa... what if I said, ooh, I wanted to stay??" she managed to choke off between huge, ragged gasps. Well, so much for 'no questions asked' he supposed. And for an instant Max wanted to say, 'Yes, for gods' sake, stay!! Go to college far away, live any dreams you have left. You've given all that I could ever ask for, I'll survive without you if you really want to stay behind.'

But he didn't say that... in fact, he started talking without any real thought in his head as to which way his answer would finally lead. "When we first came out of the pods, and we lost Michael, it was just the two of us in the desert." Isabel looked up at him for just a second, but she couldn't seem to bear the eye contact and shot her gaze downward again. "I knew that I wasn't alone -- that I had my sister. To me, earth isn't home, and whatever's out there..." Uh-oh, now he could tell which way this was going. Way to lay yet another guilt trip on your poor sister, Max -- but he had to admit it was also the truth. "... isn't home, but you're my home." There, now he'd said it.

Isabel looked up at him, and nodded, ever so slightly. She understood.

"Okay," Tess said softly as they drove up into the desert hills. "And why exactly are we wrecking the Jeep??"

"We still want the whole thing to seem as natural as possible," Max told her, "so there's no loose ends that could endanger the people we're leaving behind. What we want everybody to assume is that all four of us would have left town, in the Jeep. My dad will probably try to track it down, so we can't abandon it anywhere that it's likely to be found quickly, and we can't take it with us. Therefore, we're sending it off a cliff somewhere in the desert where no-one's ever going to find it, and he'll assume that we're still on the move, never staying in one place long enough to get picked out of the haystack."

Tess thought about that a moment. "Okay... makes sense."

"What about you??" Max asked. "Have you talked with the sheriff about what he's to say, if anyone notices that you've gone?? The story about him taking you in after your father disappeared has kind of made the rounds in Roswell."

"He thought he'd just stick with the basics," Tess explained. "That I'd found some information that my dad was still alive, and left town with a few friends, looking for him."

Max nodded, and shut up. He still wasn't quite sure what to make of Tess' line about forgetting Liz once they got home. He didn't *want* to forget Liz. He was doing what he had to do, but his heart would certainly never be Tess Harding's.

"How did I ever fall in love with someone like you??" Max hissed, his voice hard as steel, face a mask of fury. "How could I ever MARRY you??"

"You were different, you were a *king*!!" Tess raged back. "Now you're just a boy." Furious, Max brought up his hand towards her shoulder, nerving himself to touch her and make the connection, but Tess reminded him, "If you kill me, Max, you kill our son."

Max looked up at the alien time display on the granilith wall. More than two minutes left... but he didn't want to have anything more to do with this. "Go," he growled.

"Max, you can't let her take the granilith to Antar!!" Liz called out from the passageway into the pod chamber proper. Max shot a look at her, and she ran over towards him, gesturing for Max to meet her part-way.

"I don't like it either," he started, "but what other choice do..."

Michael had followed Liz, and he was probably close enough to hear as she whispered heatedly at her sweetheart. "Max, I couldn't say anything before, but the G is capable of *sending someone back in time!!* That's the danger I warned you about, when you were leaving for the summit, and that's why you can't let Tess leave in the thing, alone!!"

For a second, he couldn't reply, and Liz must have mistaken that surprise for indecision.

"It's a terrible power in the wrong hands," she insisted, "it has to be!! To give your worst enemy the power to go back and change any one event in the past..."

"Liz, Liz..." Max forced himself to keep his own voice down and keep an eye on Tess, halfway across the room. Isabel and the others were also drifting close by now. "How could you possibly KNOW all this??" And then the answer hit him.

"Because I met a time traveller... I met *you*, Max. You from thirteen years in the future. That's all I can tell you, right now!!"

Max turned to look at Michael, still startled by all the recent developments. Fortunately, his blood brother was nodding and smiling grimly.

"Contingency plan. There are colony worlds on the star chart, Max - places that Kivar can't exert his power very effectively, but with the same kind of atmosphere as the homeworld. Planets genrally friendly to the old order that we represent! We could steer the granilith there, and... I dunno. Dump Tess and the kid with someone who can take care of them and keep her out of trouble, and then fly right back here."

"She's dangerous," Kyle chimed in. "Make sure you don't underestimate..."

"I think that two of us should be able to handle her," Michael said, his eyes looking daggers past the granilith cone at the pregnant girl who was focus of all their debates. "Now that we know a little of what to watch out for. Leaving one who gets to stay behind here."

"I'll go," Isabel volunteered quickly, an eye on the 'clock.' "I don't have nearly as much reason to stay as either of you."

Max accepted that with a quick nod. "You should get to stay, Michael," he offered. "It was because of you backing out that we know."

But Michael just shook his head. "Not the way it works now, Maxwell. You've got things to take care of here, and... well, frankly I think she's into your head a little. Be more secure with Izzy and I pulling guard duty."

He put a hand on Max's shoulder. "Take care of them." And then he gathered up Maria into his arms for a quick farewell embrace. "We'll be back as soon as we can." That was an annoucement to the group in general.

Isabel had walked over to confront Tess herself. "You understand what's going to happen, right?" she asked, a hateful, furious death mask on her face. "If you interfere, we will do whatever we need to to you, to complete the mission, and killing you will be the last thing on that list." Tess blinked, then nodded once in fearful submission. Isabel jerked her head toward the cone. "You first."

Tess reached up, nervously, to touch the granilith cone, which was now humming at a high pitch, and with a flash of light she was gone. A few seconds later, another flash shone out from within the cone, and Tess could be seen inside, a somewhat vague and misty figure. Michael entered the same way, his outline seeming to overlap hers once he was inside, and Isabel came aboard last.

"Let's go," Max said, and the four of them who remained hurried out, through the pod chamber proper, and down the path as quickly as they could. Dust was starting to appear all around them and the rocks shook beneath feet... shook everywhere. As Max reached the base of the small mountain and hurried to a good lookout vantage, his arm around Liz's shoulders, there was a burst of sound, and a small, oddly-shaped projectile shot out of the highest rocky peak and off into the sky, curving upwards, scattering a puffy cloud into wisps of stray vapor as it shot right through.

"Godspeed, spaceboy," Maria whispered, her voice trembling. "Come home soon."

"Come home safe," Max whispered under his breath.

TO BE CONTINUED...


	2. Chapter 2

Part 2

The launch of the granilith was no less impressive from Michael's point of view. After 'zapping' himself inside, he wasn't really aware of seeing out of it, couldn't feel his physical body or the granilith cone itself, but he was definitely able to sense the surroundings. He could see various odd mechanisms moving within the mountain, getting ready for the launch. And there was no way of missing the moment when he was ejected out of the solid rock and into the stratosphere, in what seemed like a single moment.

For an instant he was panicking... despite all of the instructions that he'd memorized about how to STEER this thing... there was no reference point that he could relate them to, no physical controls that he could manipulate. But a second's thought reassured him on that score. The granilith was programmed to enter Warp space automatically as soon as it was far enough from a locus of gravitational force.

And sure enough, as soon as the Earth had dwindled to a marble in the sky behind him, there was a sensation like a clap of thunder, and he had a body and a place to put it again. He and Isabel and Tess were standing in a rough circle, wearing the clothes that they had had in the pod chamber, inside a room with rounded, vaguely bullet-like contours. Colored clouds were streaking by outside the 'room', whose walls seemed to be made of frosted glass, at incredible speeds.

Knowing that there wasn't a moment to lose, Michael dashed towards the prow of the 'ship', the nose of the bullet which was pointed in the way that they seemed to be going, and waved a hand up near one of the walls. Sure enough, a star map appeared with touch-sensitive controls, and he scrolled around frantically, trying to get his bearings and remember the star maps from the printout. Suddenly, impulsively, he reached underneath his shirt to the waistband of his pants... and drew out the battered pages of the destiny book printout. Good, he hadn't imagined taking it back from Max as they walked up to the pod chamber. Crazed now, he scrambled to find his place among the white printer sheets.

"I think you'd better stay back," Isabel said from behind him. "Just let Michael get on with the steering, and you and I can sit back and enjoy the ride." There was a soft pop. "Oooh, cool, a couch!"

"Do you really think you can stop me if I decide I want to choose where this flight is going to take us??" Tess growled.

"I think we can make it difficult for you... and trust me... if you're in the mood to take charge and make choices, there is NOTHING I'd like more than to make things difficult for you, you crazy slut," Isabel vowed. "I will make sure we all crash and die, if I have to, rather than let you deliver us, and this relic, whither you will."

That was about when Michael finally found an agreeable destination, and tapped on the appropriate star on the control display. There was a definite sensation of centrifugal force as the granilith changed course, the color patterns outside curving, and slowing, and then shooting off in new directions. Grinning to himself fiercely, Michael locked the helm to accept only his own palmprint for further course changes, and then stood up to join Isabel and their prisoner.

The room looked very different now. When it had first appeared the space had been empty except for the walls and the three of them. Now, not only had a couch appeared, but two chairs, a coffee table, some curtains hugging the curve of the glass walls, and two lampstands. Isabel and Tess were each drinking what looked like cherry cokes with extra tabasco, and there was a third glass sitting on the coffee table, waiting for him. (On top of a coaster, no less.)

"We can create matter out of pure thought, in here," Isabel explained as he sat down. "Handy, to say the least. Any idea how long it'll be before we get where we're going??"

"Not really... hours at least, maybe days." He sighed. "The two of us had better sleep in shifts, just in case." He didn't mention his 'palmprint lock' on the navigation controls... better to keep that a secret from Tess until she actually had a chance to try a course change. He wasn't entirely sure that it was a precaution that could keep her out forever, after all...

Liz stared dully at the 'warp wrap' sitting in front of her, feeling stunned and overwhelmed by everything that had happened over the past few hours. Maria and Kyle, sitting in the same booth at the Crashdown, seemed to be reacting the same way. Max had gone off to make some telephone calls as soon as they got back to town -- apparently he had chucked his cell phone into the ravine as well as his Jeep, convinced that he would never be needing it again.

"Liz." She looked up, very slightly, to see Jim Valenti sliding into the bench opposite her, next to his languid son. "I realize that you're probably feeling very depressed this morning, but..."

"Why would you say that?" she asked, puzzled for a moment.

"Well, with Max and the others leaving, of course... Max??" Jim looked up in surprise as Max approached the table. "I... was there a change in plans? Are..."

"A bit of a change, yeah," Max said, shaking his head slightly. "Michael, Isabel, and Tess still left, though hopefully Michael and Isabel, at least, will be back soon. I stayed behind." He left it at that... Liz realized that he probably didn't want to drop the 'psycho Tess' bomb on Mister Valenti in public, especially considering that he was the one who had brought Tess to the Valenti house to stay there.

"Alright. You're going to tell your parents about Isabel having left??" Jim asked, still obviously trying to reorient. Max nodded, and after a moment grabbed a chair from a nearby table to swing around to face the booth. All of a sudden, Liz squeezed into the middle of the bench seat on her side of the booth, right up next to Maria, so that there would be room for Max to sit there. It wasn't just that she wanted to be as close to Max, (metaphorically,) as they used to be... people swinging chairs up to the booths like that was a pet peeve of hers. The space between the booths and the tables was an area that people should be able to move through unimpeded, especially the waitperson.

Max noticed the room that she was making for him and flashed her a small smile as he sat down. Valenti apparently had decided to continue with his old thought. "I'm not sure if you're still investigating Alex's death, Liz, but I actually found out something interesting today."

"What?" The case of Alex's death had been closed, apparently, but Valenti didn't know that yet of course. She was curious as to whether this new clue of his was something that would point towards Tess or some bit of meaningless (relatively,) trivia. "What is it??"

"Something from the initial search of the car." Valenti passed a white sheet across the table, apparently a copy of a photograph of a plastic bag with some very tiny items inside it. "Apparently something broke in the crash, although they couldn't figure out what -- there were loose screws and pieces of plastic and casing... something electronic, maybe, although there isn't enough to be sure of what."

That got everybody's attention. It didn't seem to fit in with what they'd discovered about Alex's death (and Tess) so far, and it didn't sound irrelevant. Was it possible that there was something they hadn't figured out yet... something even Tess hadn't known perhaps? Or something she had kept from them even in her confession? "Is there any possibility that this thing was... alien in origin?" Max asked in a whisper.

"I thought of that explanation, but it doesn't seem to fit," Valenti replied, his own voice scarcely any louder. "The screws are standard number two screws, nothing unearthly about them at all, and a bit of the plastic casing has a fragment of the letters 'R-E-A' inscribed in it, probably from 'made in korea.' If you want my guess, whatever this thing was, you could probably buy it at the radio shack in the mall."

"It wasn't a part of the car stereo?" Maria asked.

"No, there doesn't seem to have been anything unaccounted for there."

"And no other trace of this mystery device??" Liz asked. "Then apparently someone tampered with the crash scene before the police got there."

"I dunno," Kyle put in. "Maybe... the killer put those things in the car beforehand, to draw attention away from... herself."

"I doubt it," Max countered. "Her best cover was making the crash look like accident, or like a suicide alternatively. Anything that doesn't fit into either theory works against her, and I can't say that these..." he tapped the items in the picture meaningfully, "fit into either theory."

Valenti at this point was looking from face to face. "Away from herself... her best cover... You talk as if you know who the killer was!!" he hissed. "Max, I thought you said the girl at Las Cruces wasn't..."

"She wasn't," Max agreed almost without voicing the words. "We'd better take a walk."

As Max stepped slowly down the porch stairs at his house, he saw a familiar dark-haired figure on the other side of the street. He and Liz met up on the sidewalk near a corner of his front walk.

"Waiting for me to come out??" he asked with a smile that would hardly have qualified as a happy one.

"I didn't really feel like knocking on the door," Liz admitted. "Thought about trying your window, but..." She left the conclusion unsaid and shrugged. "You're out here now. How did things go with the parents?"

"Worse than I thought," Max muttered, and Liz took in a sharp, sudden breath. "As soon as I said one thing about Isabel going off looking for where she really came from, they had all kinds of questions for me. Did she have a lead, did either of us even have an idea where to start looking. Did I know how to reach her or would she be checking in with me. Did we know how many con artist there were in big cities who made out like bandits just off adopted children trying to find their birth parents..."

"Oh, wow," Liz said, impulsively taking Max's right arm in both of hers, hugging it to her side. "And you didn't really have any answers that you could give them, did you??"

Max shook his head sadly, and began to walk down the sidewalk, Liz staying next to him. "So, any word on how the rest of it goes??" he asked softly.

Liz took a second to guess what he meant by 'it', and then nodded vaguely. "You had the hardest part. I don't think anyone has noticed that Tess isn't still at the Valenti's yet, and it'd be suspicious if they mention her without a good reason to. Maria wants to keep Michael's apartment ready for when he gets back... I've told her that I'll chip in for the rent if it comes to that."

"Me too, of course," Max said. "Probably shouldn't ask Kyle or Mister Valenti... they're having enough problems with the bottom line right now as it is." He perked up as another thought hit him. "Michael probably didn't take his cash reserve with him when we were getting ready - there'd be no use for it where we were going anyway. I don't think he'd mind too much if we spent some of it on his rent. For that matter, I think Isabel has a little stashed away too, though I'd rather not draw on THAT unless we have no other choice."

"Of course," Liz agreed. All of a sudden, she seemed very... unsettled, about the simple intimacy of holding Max's arm against her body. Max was far from unaffected by it himself... there was so much baggage that had been brought out in the open over the past few days. But he was still disappointed when she let go and gently drew back.

"Liz... there's a lot we have to talk about," he said softly. "I know that you might not be ready to face things yet... but I wanted to put this out there. I think I'd rather get into it all sooner rather than later. Okay, I've said it."

"Max... all things being equal, I'd want that too, but--" Liz shook her head and bailed out of that sentence. "I'm not there yet, but hear this. I don't blame y-- actually, I guess I kinda blame you. But I'm more angry at MYSELF right now than I am mad at you, believe it or not!"

"At yourself??" Max came to a sudden stop next to a red station wagon, and reflexively drummed his fingers against the top of its roof. "What have you done that you need to be angry at yourself for?? I'm the one who... who threw away the trust you had in me, who..."

Liz didn't seem to have heard a word in that speech. "You... you're doing it. You're tapping your fingers. Oh, my god."

"I am??" For a second, he didn't even understand what she meant, before he realized that he was, indeed, rhythmically drumming on the top of the car. "Sorry, I didn't mean to bug you, it was just a habitual..."

"Don't you understand what this... no, no, I guess you don't. There's no way you could have." Liz frowned to herself, biting the tip of her bottom lip in that really cute way that she had.

"No way that I could understand WHAT??" Max asked, flabbergasted. He didn't get an answer, though -- Liz had moved onto a fresh realization.

"Oh, mygawd... Maria's mom, she's probably still freaking out. I've gotta get over there and scope out the situation."

Max still didn't understand, but at least this was something he felt he could help with. "I'll drive."

"No... probably better if you stay out of her way, just in case she's put together anything about you healing Brody's brain. And you've got your own freakout to get ready for, unless I miss my guess." She looked around, as if weighing her options, and then turned around to face him. "Besides, you don't have a car anymore, do you??"

"I can lend you the keys to my dad's, if you won't need it long."

"Nah, probably better not, though thanks for offering," she assured him. "I'll be okay. Listen, call me tomorrow, okay??" She rushed up and kissed him softly on the cheek.

"Sure, okay." Max shook his head slightly as the girl he loved dashed away.

Kyle frowned a little in concentration as he examined the small bedroom. Tess had gone, probably never to return, so he certainly didn't see any reason to keep sleeping out in the living room. He didn't feel like making a whole bunch of changes either, though, which meant that he was left with an odd sensation of intruding on her personal space. Well, that would probably go away with time.

Tess had never had that much in the way of 'stuff', and some of what she had she'd taken with her. At least she'd never actually gotten around to painting the walls of the room pink with her alien powers. Kyle had to chuckle a little at the thought: Tess Harding was one of the least 'pink' teenage girls that he could think of, offhand.

He wandered up the hall, through the living room, and noticed his dad sitting quietly at the dinner table. "Hey, how's it going?" he called softly. Jim turned to look at him without saying anything. "Still having a hard time getting your brain around it, huh??"

"I remembered something today that I haven't thought about in years and years," he said. His voice seemed detached and somehow faraway. "Something that happened... well, quite a few years before you were born, before I met your mother, even. It was my first year as a deputy, back when Rick Austin was the Sheriff."

"Ummm... okay," Kyle said uncertainly. He waited, but his father didn't continue the story right away. Kyle pulled a chair away from the table and sat down, waiting.

"I was the new kid on the force, and was getting a lot of routine foot patrol assignments in the quieter part of town. There had been no action of interest for days before I happened to catch a burglar right in the act."

Jim Valenti jr paused at this point in the tale. "I recognized him... Ross Kellerman, a friendly guy who'd been a year ahead of me in high school. I had heard stories about how he had been shaken up when his brother died in 'Nam, and been fired from his job at the foundry. And now he was trying his hand at robbery to feed himself. It was horrible, and I felt pity for Ross."

"You did?" Kyle echoed in surprise, and then thought a little himself. "Yeah, I guess I might have too, if I had known him before he was a crook, I mean."

His father nodded. "So... well, I didn't report the crime. And I gave Ross all the money I had on me at the time... not a lot, but enough that he wouldn't need to worry about eating for most of a week. And I let him go, of course."

There was something Kyle didn't like creeping into his Dad's tone of voice, just around the edges. "Dad... what- did something happen? Did Ross do something afterward?"

He laughed hollowly. "Doesn't take much brains to guess that, does it? Well, yeah, he took my money and bought a hunting knife at the general store... and then went right back not half an hour later and tried to rob the store, with that same knife!" He let out a low groan. "What Robbie Aaron was thinking of in the first place, just selling it to him without even thinking anything was wrong, I don't know. But... well, things ended badly. Robbie was stubborn, tried to fight back, and by the time the Sheriff got to the scene, Ross had a revolver bullet in his head, and Robbie was lying behind the counter, bleeding to death of a stab wound in his shoulder. They only just managed to get him to the hospital in time to save his life, and he didn't wake up for nearly a week."

Valenti suddenly focused with all the energy of a blaster ray on the face of his son. "That's when I learned... it's a great temptation to feel sorry for someone who's lived through painful circumstances. Makes you feel good to protect someone like that, I think. But you can't afford to forget that living through that might make a person dangerous." He sighed heavily. "Wouldn't have thought I could forget a lesson like that."

"Dad, about Tess..." Kyle started, and then couldn't think of how to finish the thought. As painful as his father's story had been, it kind of said everything that needed to be said. So Kyle changed the subject. "Dad, is there something going on about the Sheriff's office? How is it that you found out that stuff about Alex's car, today of all days? That case has been closed for a month, and you're not even working there anymore." Something occured to him. "Unless they're offering you the job of Sheriff back."

Valenti laughed wryly. "Well, doesn't seem like much chance of that, but yeah, something is happening." He took a breath. "The city council is moving Tim Hanson back down to the ranks: they don't think he was ready for the responsibility of being Sheriff after all."

"Oh," Kyle said, confused. "But if they won't bring you back..."

"Judge Lewis has talked to Owen Blackwood informally about possibly choosing him for the post, and Owen came to talk to me about several things... about finding out that Hansen withheld evidence from the report on Alex's death, for one thing. Also about bringing me back into the force as one of his deputies... possibly his senior deputy. Owen doesn't want to get busted down for incompetence as well, and he thinks having me as his right-hand man might help."

"Wow," Kyle muttered. "What do YOU think about that prospect, Dad?"

"Well... it's tempting, though I might have a hard time with the guys, Tim especially, being brought back in as their field sergeant, essentially. On the other hand, it kind of makes sense. I wasn't relieved of my post as sheriff for any lack of competence, I like to think, but because I'd misused the trust of the town for the sake of a different loyalty. As senior deputy, I'd have less power to abuse, and I think I'd be more careful about a conflict of interest this time." He sighed in thought. "On the other hand, maybe I should ask Owen to just make me a deputy of the ranks."

Kyle smiled. "Maybe. One way or another, I think it'll be good for you to go back to work at the Sheriff's station... if Owen or whoever else will have you, and if you can stand the comedown from being 'Homo numero una.' It's been weird, seeing you kinduv at loose ends since you were let go."

His father nodded. "So, umm... how are your final exams coming, anyway??"

Maria slowly turned the knob on the front door and pushed gently. It swung in several inches without resistance, and Maria turned to Liz, standing beside her and slightly behind, and made a face of pure terror. Liz rolled her eyes slightly, (though not without a bit of sympathy,) and waved her on. Maria opened the door further and stepped in, tentatively calling "Um, mom?"

"In here, honey." One after the other they stepped cautiously over the threshold, and through the rooms, guided by the memory of how Amy DeLuca's voice had sounded, until Maria and Liz were looking at her as she sat at the kitchen table, holding a mug of something steaming in front of her. Taking a very small sip from it.

There was a very resolved look on Mrs. DeLuca's face, and Liz tried to fight down the sudden nervousness she felt by asking herself what was in the mug that she was drinking of. As Maria smiled tentatively, Liz inhaled deeply and strained to detect any trace of scent. Certainly not any variety of coffee; she'd have been able to tell easily if it were. Probably not one of the herbal drinks she sometimes brewed either. Actual tea? Perhaps. The alert posture would be consistent with a moderately caffeinated DeLuca, from Liz's considerable experience.

"I've had quite a day, and put some surprising things together," Maria's mom opened. "I don't really like the conclusions that I got to in the end."

"Umm... mom," Maria tried to interrupt, pulling up a chair and sitting down, but Amy didn't let her.

"I'm sorry, girls, but let me finish, please?" Her tone of voice would allow no alternatives. "Brody Davis... held the three of us, Sean, Max and Tess hostage in the UFO center... raving about someone named Larek, and calling Max 'Zan' -- in general going on and on about aliens and UFOs. You were trying to convince me to keep quiet about the whole thing after he let us go, for the sake of his daughter... Max was trying to bully me into it too, I refused..." She shook her head in confusion. "And then that Tess girl looked at me, then closed her eyes and concentrated... and I forgot!! Everything was different, and I thought that we'd been trapped there in the UFO center because the doors locked when the power went out, and none of that stuff about Brody and the hostage crisis occured to me anymore. It went clean out of my head for WEEKS... until last night."

"For the sake of argument," Liz said calmly, "how can you be sure that what you're remembering now is the reality??"

"Well, for starters, after confronting Sean about it and using my very best 'stern Aunt Amy' act, he confirmed it," she said. "Filled in a few details that I hadn't mentioned myself. And I really don't think he was just playing along because he was scared of me." She looked up at Liz, her eyes narrowed. "Partly because if he was, I really don't think he would have made up the tidbit that YOU had bribed him into keeping silent, by agreeing to go out on a date." Liz shifted uncomfortably.

"So where does that leave us?? The two of you are implicated in a conspiracy to cover up an alien-related incident, and someone changed my memory in a way that is CLEARLY beyond the conventionally possible in order to shut me up. I've started to wonder about a good many other things... like all those mysterious camping vacations and road trips and all the other times that the two of you or your friends have disappeared on over the past few years. Every time, Maria, that you went on a 'sleepover' to Liz's place and told me to call one of you on your cell phone rather than bothering Liz's parents.

"The hubbub about that guidance counselor vanishing two years ago... and the police said that you - Liz, and Alex were the last ones to see her. Rumors that Jim was investigating Max... and there was that scratching guy who got thrown out of the UFO convention! Jim finding that kidnapped girl out in the woods and losing his job -- even you girls' on and off romances with Max and Michael... everything seems to be a piece of this same pattern. I can't see the connections, but I feel them, just out of reach."

She took a deep breath. "I'm not going to 'freak out.' I'll try my best not to get upset and judgemental before looking at the situation from your point of view and giving you the benefit of the doubt." She leaned forward. "But I want to hear the TRUTH, the *whole* truth, and nothing but the truth -- and I wanna hear it *NOW*!!"

The two teenaged girls shared one more panicked look, and then Liz blurted out, "Well, I suppose it all started on the day that I got shot to death."

"Ohhhee," Max moaned, lying back on the couch in Michael's living room. "How did you get through this, Kyle??"

"Well, I think it was a little different for me," Kyle said quietly, looking at the other boy empathetically. "But what I held on to was... that I was getting back to myself. The center of my being... though you might not want to phrase it that way. It's a healing, in a way... shedding something constricting your mind and re-discovering freedom."

"But once I'm free, how do I come to terms with what I've done," Max muttered slowly through his growl of frustration.

"That one, I'm not so sure of," Kyle admitted. "On one hand, it wasn't really me, or us, who did those things. But I'm not sure it was entirely not-me, not certain whether Tess could have done what she did if there wasn't some place deep inside that didn't care about Alex." He sighed deeply. "But I know there's a part of me that DID care, and that Tess silenced that side of my mind. So I do what I can to make restitution to the people who have been hurt, and I keep moving on. What else is there to do??"

"You know, that's actually not bad in the 'insight' category," Max muttered. "Well, I guess you had to get lucky one of these months."

Kyle's backhand impacted resoundingly on his shoulder, and Max groaned a little. "Hey, hey, hey... in enough pain already. I don't need any extra abuse right now."

"Hey, you started it," Kyle complained. "Well, if I don't get to hit you, then I'll be playing Michael's Xbox until you're finished with the mental torture of your de-mind-warp." He started to get out the game console, then paused. "What... what does it feel like? I mean, Tess changed my memories and made me do things that I wouldn't have done. It was pretty clear what would happen when that wears off, what I would remember. But she didn't do any of that to you... she was just affecting your emotions, right?? What's it like to... well, for that to go away??"

"I... I'm not sure how to explain it," Max admitted. "None of the facts of the past few months have changed, yeah. But... I can look back, and I can remember how I felt in a circumstance... when I was alone with Tess, in an arguement with Liz or Isabel. I can still remember how I felt, but that emotion is..." he shuddered violently. "It's like that feeling was an eel that got stuck in my brain, from one of those corny scifi movies... and no matter what I do, I still can't claw it out, because what I did, and the emotion in that memory, are locked in place." He sighed.

"I guess all you can do now is mend the fences that you kicked over," Kyle agreed. "Did you talk to Liz yet?"

"A little, this morning, just before it started. I think she realized what was about to happen, she saw me tapping my fingers, and decided that it'd be better to scram until I was myself again." He sighed. "Thanks for meeting me here, Kyle. It's... it's slightly better to not have to go through this alone, to be around someone who knows at least vaguely what I'm talking about."

Kyle shrugged. "Yeah, well... you'll owe me one for later I guess." And he started up the video game.

"No, no, no... I hate to, but I have to insist," Mrs DeLuca said softly as they walked down the street. "I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on everything else, but in this, you have GOT to be pulling my leg. A giant blue crystal alien jellyfish??"

"Ridiculous as it sounds, mom, I'm dead serious," Maria insisted. "I was there in the DuPree's basement, and I saw it with my own eyes. You can ask... ah, there he is now." Sure enough, Jim Valenti was waiting for them at the end of his front walk. Maria had called him a little earlier to let him know that they were walking over.

"Hey, Amy," he said as they got there, taking her in his arms and placing a quick kiss on her cheek. "How do you feel?"

"A... a little shaky, I admit," she said softly. "Holding it together for now. PLEASE tell me that you have some coffee brewed!"

He smiled. "It's waiting for you in the dining room."

"Okay." As they headed to the porch, she asked Liz "Now, there's one thing I don't understand. If these Gandarium were like crystals big enough that you could hold one in your hand comfortably in your hand... how did they infect and hybridize cells??"

"Well... it's complicated, and I'm not sure I understand it completely myself," Liz admitted. "The best I can figure is, the crystals were actually colonies of millions or hundreds of millions of individual gandarium, each of which were really tiny, about as small as our cells -- or maybe smaller. Not sure if there's anything more I can say that will really help explain it..."

Michael snapped to full alertness with the sensation of a slight inertial tug pulling him sideways. As far as he could figure, any REAL inertial effect in warp flight, if the concept of inertia was even relevant any more, would probably have sent him into the walls at about ten thousand miles an hour. But the granilith seemed to be rigged up to use these gentle 'tugs' as a cue to signal automatic course corrections. That had been a big one.

He stood up out of the couch he had materialized to sleep in, (a futon that turned out to be surprisingly comfy,) and summoned a soft light with the wave of one hand. Figuring out how to dim the granilith chamber for sleep had taken them nearly an hour.

Isabel had stood up near the table as well. "Is this it??" she asked nervously.

"I'm not sure," Michael said as he hurried up to the nav controls. "It was hard to... um, to be sure about the rate of our progress..." He noticed in passing that Tess' eyes were fluttering, though he wasn't sure if that meant she was already awake, waking up, or just dreaming. He called up the star map. "Yeah... looks like we're almost at final destination co-ordinates---" Right then a violent shaking shook the chamber, followed by an 'inertia tug' forwards, which suggested that the G was slowing down.

Isabel moved slowly towards him, until she was next to Tess' bed. She was still wearing the same black v-neck top and gray pants from when they had first got to the pod chamber that day... it hadn't seemed worth trying to change clothes for bed, especially since they were supposed to be watching Tess every minute. She had been on watch while Michael slept. "I think we're..." the whole vessel trembled again - "-- encountering higher gravitational forces."

Another sideways push. "Course correction," Tess said, clearly resolving the question of whether or not she was asleep. "Michael, can you get that little screen of yours to give a countdown for when we transit out of warp spa--"

The reason that she was interrupted, of course, was that the Granilith left warp space at that precise instant, abolishing the chamber and everything that they had made inside it. The granilith popped into existence in a stellar system a few hundred parsecs away from earth, a metallic cone flying towards one particular world at half a million miles per second and slowing down as quickly as it could. Michael, Isabel, and Tess, along with all that they had brought with them, were reduced to matter and energy held contained within the granilith's power matrices... the three of them conscious, but unable to communicate or affect the granilith or its environment.

As it fell whining into the atmosphere of the planet known as Stellynfrus Gamma and streaked through its sky... finally landing at speeds in excess of R17 in the middle of an unearthly wetlands forest!

TO BE CONTINUED...


	3. Chapter 3

Part 3

It was a week and a half, almost two weeks later, and Liz was sitting behind the counter of the cafe. Things were quiet: there were only two customers in the dining room and they both seemed to be quite content with their orders. Jose was on duty in the kitchen and Clara Williams was also waiting tables... even if that was more literal waiting than the usual effort. And then HE walked though the door.

Liz recognized him immediately, no matter how little she expected him to come back like this... by the face, mostly. His clothes were different than she'd ever seen before... a thick and heavy black t-shirt, ripped in many small places, and a band logo of some kind faded past her ability to recognize it... loose blue jeans almost falling off of him, also faded and torn. Also the hair, and something about his eyes, but there was no mistaking the face. Liz hurried over to meet him. "Michael!!" She lowered her voice to a whisper. "You're back... so soon!!?"

"Umm... yeah," he mumbled back uncertainly. "Just got in about half an hour ago."

"Well... is everything okay?" Liz pressed, softly but insistently. "Did Isabel come back with you? What happened with Tess? Come *on*, Michael, get with the update! I'm dying of curiosity here."

"Umm... chill, okay??" he insisted, raising up a hand in an intercepting gesture. "You'll get the lowdown, but it's kind of a confusing story to tell, and here doesn't seem like the place, now does it?"

"Um, no, I guess I have to admit that that's true," Liz said, more than a little deflated. "Well, I'm not really needed here, so we can go up to the balcony or..."

"No," he said again. "It'll be better if you come with me... someone else can explain most of it. I've never been that big with the talking and talking, you know."

"Umm..." Liz frowned. "No, I guess not. Alright, lead on MacDuff." She tossed her order book onto the counter, and made a gesture to Clara that really could have meant just about anything, but the other girl nodded.

"That's it?" he confirmed. "You don't even wanna change out of your little antennae uniform first?"

"I can take the barrettes out on the way... and I'm not worrying about the dress. I told you Michael, I can't wait to hear what's happened." A thought struck her. "Oh, man, I'd better call the rest of the gang now... Max and Maria will kill me if they I didn't let them know first thing..."

"No," he insisted, grabbing her arm. "If you wanna go right now, we'll go," he whispered, leaning close. "But you can't call anyone else... not until you've come and heard what's what. It might put them in danger."

Liz blinked in surprise, but didn't say anything more, and he led the way back out the door and to the cafe parking lot, and a very unfamiliar car: a Japanese four-door sedan of some kind, colored in rich burgundy, both outside, and, it turned out, inside. "Umm, should I even ask?" she said.

"Probably better not," he answered gruffly. "Umm, we needed transportation and there was no time to be picky. I didn't steal it or anything... exactly."

Something about that statement didn't quite put Liz at ease, but she buckled herself into the shotgun seat without objection and stayed relatively quiet as he pulled out, (without bothering to use the seat belt himself,) and started to head east on second.

The tension of staying silent got to be too much for Liz to take when Michael turned onto a wide cross street, heading south. "Come on, you have to give me *something*. What was it like riding in the granilith, huh? I'm like dying of curiosity here, that's the least you can give me..."

"Just... couldja just, like chill, okay?" he growled uncomfortably. "It was, um, a heck of a ride, but I... eh, I don't really have the words to do it justice. Alright?? You'll hear the whole score once we get where we're going."

"Um, okay," Liz mumbled, more than a little disappointed at how uncommunicative he was being, but not wanting to pressure Michael any more. After a few more minutes, she decided to think of something to say that wouldn't necessarily require a response, and it didn't take her long to come up with one. "Maria's been missing you a lot."

The expression that crossed over Michael's face was hard to describe. "I... I'm, um, lookin' forward to seeing her too, of course. But not until it's safe. Her place would be the first place they'd look for me."

"The first place WHO would look for you??" Liz asked, but he impassively refused to answer. "Are you sure that it was 'safe' to come to the cafe, then?" she pressed.

"Pretty sure... and we had to make contact somehow," he grunted. "Now shut up already!! We're almost there."

And it was only a few minutes before Michael pulled the car in behind a run-down house somewhere near East Chisum Street. "What, did you just move into an abandoned place??" she whispered almost silently.

"It seemed like a good way to stay low-profile," Michael answered, looking around, and then leading her into the building. It definitely looked abandoned inside, although some effort had been taken to make it liveable, on the part of the new residents presumably.

"Okay, we're here," she said. "Start talking. Or, if somebody else is supposed to explain... well, where *is* anybody else?? Where's Isabel??"

"Umm... Why don't you sit down?" Michael muttered, indicating a none too attractive but probably stable armchair. "I... this might be difficult, but you need to relax. Everythin's going to be okay."

"I... I'm not at all sure I feel like it's safe to relax," Liz said evenly, suspicions suddenly starting to pop out in her mind, but he gave her a look, and uneasily she sat. "Something's wrong... and you flinched when I mentioned Isabel. She isn't here, is she??"

"No, she isn't," a new voice announced, entering the room. Liz turned her head, and saw her face. Tess' face. But not quite Tess - not her mannerisms, not her arrogant posture... not even Tess' hair or clothes. And certainly not pregnant. Ava, Liz realized. She got up in surprise -- or at least, she *tried* to stand up. Her arms and legs couldn't move from the chair.

And Liz turned to stare at the young man who had brought her there, a chain of deductions reaching its logical conclusion. If the girl was not Tess, then the guy was not Michael, and had to be... "Rath," she whispered, finally seeing it. He had done a good job of... well, of acting not like himself, if not acting perfectly like Michael either. Liz had ignored all of the little jarring details in her pleasure at seeing Michael again.

And then the implications of the situation started to sink home. Here she was, effectively restrained and helpless, far from home or anywhere that her friends would know to look for her, along with two alien clones. One of them had been almost a friend and had helped her once, but the other had shown himself to be a brutal thug who had plotted to kill his brother and leader, and who had very nearly murdered Max in New York. What could the two of them want with HER, now???

Isabel was aware of the granilith sitting at rest, a small part of it underneath the murky waters of the swamp, most of it poking out into the air, for a little while. *How do we get out??* she wondered. She tried to make a mental effort to leave the granilith's energy matrices, as she had consciously entered them, but it did no good.

And then, maybe forty-five seconds after the landing, (though it was hard to judge time in that state,) she was standing there, calves about eight inches deep in the muddy water, standing next to the curve of the granilith cone, and Michael and Tess were there with her. She almost thought she heard the faint trailing echo of a 'pop' sound caused by their sudden appearance. Isabel opened her mouth to say the first thing that came to her mind, but Tess beat her to it.

"What a fuckin' godforsaken waste of space you had to drag me to, Guerin!" Okay, that was going a little further than Isabel would have, but it was hard to argue that the wetlands seemed anything better than depressing and uncomfortable. She certainly hadn't expected for her best pair of boots to get wet, when she'd decided to wear them on the interstellar trip.

Michael didn't comment, so Iz decided to try a more practical concern. "Okay, what do we do now??"

"Well," Michael said, thinking about it. "The colonists would have detected us coming in, and I'm guessing that they know pretty much where we are. So they'll come looking for the granilith, and who has it. We should probably try to make some kind of shelter and wait for them."

"And what if they don't have any clue where to find us??" Tess shot back bitterly. "I guess it would be expecting too much for you to touch down somewhere in the vicinity of, I don't know, civilization??"

"I didn't know where to find civilization," he admitted unhappily. "I only just managed to figure out *which* planet in this star system we should be aiming for." He mumbled something under his breath, and Isabel tried to pretend she didn't know and didn't care that he was adding 'assuming I figured right' or something like that.

He tramped across a stretch of oozing mud and floating moss to scramble up onto a bar of more solid ground, examining the plants available there. "These trunks seem pretty strong, and the... whatever these are," he gestured at a wide, flat, patterned sheet of blue stuff that seemed to fill the same role as leaves but not the same definition, "is practically solid enough to work as a wall. Would be enough to build a lean-to or a hut of some kind. Little help, Izzy??" Isabel grabbed Tess' arm, (not about to let her get very far out of reach if she could help it,) and dragged her up the bank. After Tess wrenched herself away and sulkily sat on a flat rock close by, Isabel pitched in with all the enthusiasm she could... well, dredge up, using her powers whenever she could and her bare hands whenever she had no other choice. Slowly, a large and sturdy, if bare, shelter began to take shape.

It was hard work even so, and seeing Tess just sitting there did nothing to improve Isabel's morale, but on the other hand forcing her to lend a hand seemed like a line neither of them wanted to cross, and probably more trouble than it was worth, anyway. To distract herself, Isabel muttered, "I wonder what the rest of the gang are up to, back in Roswell."

Tess smiled a small smile. "Trying not to worry about when you're getting back... talking your parents out of calling the missing children's department... or is that runaway teenage brats??"

Michael looked up at that. "Already?? We've only been gone a d..." He broke off, fixating on an expression in Tess' eyes. "Alright, what's the big gag??"

"You didn't get that far in the translation, did you?" Tess snickered. "It seemed like only a day to us, but actually we've been in transit for over a week at least. Some kind of hyper-relativistic effect at high interstellar speeds." She shrugged her unconcern. "Didn't really matter to me... I had no hurry to get back home, only to get out of that place they call 'the Earth...' But I bet it hurts to know that they've been missing you for days and days already, and you didn't even realize, huh??"

Isabel *was* stung by the news, she had to admit it, but shook it off and resumed the task at hand, seaming two blue panels together to form a section of wall. "You know, you could get off your ass and pitch in too -- we're all in this together now, pretty much, and the shelter's for you too." After a moment and a thought, Isabel added with a small amount of honest concern... "How's the baby doing?"

Tess sighed loudly and stood up, going over and adjusting the way Michael had fitted a few trunks together to form a corner of the leanto roof. He took a look once she was done, and nodded approvingly. "He and I seem to be breathing better, thank you. Which suggests that Michael here may have actually picked a winner, will wonders never cease." She looked around. "We're going to need some stuff in the way of furniture here... makeshift chairs, tables, even beds."

"Sounds like it's my turn to go scavenging," Isabel decided. "You take over with the walls here." And she headed out of the leanto to start scrounging for anything in the swamp that looked like it might be useful."

Liz looked from the face of one dupe to the other and back, still bound to the chair she sat in via invisible alien forces. Frantic, she blurted out the first thing on her mind. "What the HELL are the two of you doing working together? And why -- last time I knew, you were fierce adversaries." Gulping, she made a dreadful guess. "Ava, did he threaten you somehow to go along with this? Or coerce you by holding some secret above your head? Come on, you don't have to do this... I'm your cornball--"

"No, no, I think you've got it all wrong," Ava insisted with a sweet, friendly smile, cutting of Liz's panicked babbling. "Rath's trying to do a face turn, though subtlety still isn't his trump suit, so I'm not surprised you got the wrong idea."

"Umm... huh?" Liz replied, somewhat lost in the lingo. "Rath's doing what to his face??"

Ava chuckled again. "He's trying to do the right thing, become a good guy. A face, instead of a heel. Now, if you'll agree not to attack either of us or try to leave until we've explained everything, then he'll let you go. *Won't* you, general??" Rath didn't look too happy about the idea, but he nodded somberly, which surprised Liz. Unless this was quite an involved scene being played out for her benefit, it seemed at least like Rath wasn't in charge here. Or at least not entirely... maybe they were both partly in charge.

"Um, okay, I promise. No attacking either of you, or leaving before you're done, as long as that can be done in a timely fashion and I'm free to go afterward."

"Um..." Ava weighed that over. "Agreed in principle, but you may have to give us some leeway on 'timely fashion...' There's quite a bit to fill you in on."

"I'll try to be patient," Liz agreed readily. Somehow this seemed very important... and suddenly her extremities could move again. She fought back the urge to leap up out of the chair, and instead just shifted to make herself comfortable as best she could.

"Okay, and you asked why we was tag-teamin' it," Rath started, pulling up a seat of his own... though the thing he sat upon seemed hardly to qualify as a chair. "Well, not long after the summit, me an' Lonn had a big fallin' out. I'd decided that I wasn't wild about some of the things we'd done... like icin' Zan. I know yous probably thoughtta me as a stone cold killer, but Zan really was like a brother to me. I gave in to my dark side and nullified him, and that's sometin' I'll probably hafta carry 'round inside of me forever. And then we tried to play Max, and squash him after he stood his ground to Nicholas, and Max didn't deserve nunna that. He's a stand-up guy, maybe better than Zan 'cuz he didn't have to grow up in the shitholes of the big city the way we did." Rath shook his head. "Sorry 'bout goin' on an' on there... the point is that I wanted to make a change. Lonnie, she was still high on being her own bad girl self, and so we split up and went separate ways. I didn't like who I saw when I looked at her, or at myself for that matter. But after wandering around by myself for a little while, I clued in that I didn't really have any idea how to start making it right."

Rath let out a loud breath and continued his tale. "I ran into Ava sometime in the middle of January, I guess, in a little roadside restaurant near Columbus. Craziest thing, both of us ending up at the same place and the same time. At first, she was a little afraid, that I'd come to take something out on her, but I didn't even want to. The way I used to treat Ava like space trash was one more thing I was on the guilt trip over. So, we started to actually talk, and it didn't take long for the subject to around come to your friends, here in Roswell. Ava kind of missed you, Parker, and was hoping that Michael and Isabel were doing okay. And I had some bad news to share on that score."

"What?" Liz prompted. The idea of Rath being remorseful had seemed incongruous to start with, but she had started to tentatively accept it and was following the tale avidly.

"Well, did Max tell you about the part of the Summit story where Lonnie and I dragged Tess back down into the sewers, after we tried to bump Max off and it didn't work?"

"Yeah, after I saved him," Liz whispered, relishing the memory in retrospect.

"That... that was you?" Rath repeated, stunned. He turned to Ava. "I -- I thought you..."

Ava grinned lopsidedly at him. "You thought? Now there's an unlikely thing, Rath boy. What could I do? I couldn't have made Max see anything from five thousand miles away; you know that. Isabel put Liz into the back of Max's mind, and he spotted her in the nick of time."

Rath shook his head. "Like a dreamwalk? But Max was wide awake the whole time..."

Liz took a turn. "The subconscious mind is just as active when somebody is awake as when they're dreaming, or nearly so. We just don't see it so clearly then."

"But Liz is Max's soulmate," Ava put in, bringing a horrible blush to Liz's face. "Even buried in the depth of his mind, he saw her... well, come on Rath. You were just getting to the good part when we all got sidetracked."

Rath nodded. "Well, something happened down in those tunnels that I don't think you know about. I..."

"I knew that there had to be more than the story that Tess told," Liz blurted out. "It just didn't make sense that you'd try for a moment to interrogate her with your power and then just leave."

"Um, yeah," Rath muttered. "I tried to get into Tess' head, find out where the granilith was hidden because Lonnie wanted to use it as a bargaining chip with Kivar. I didn't get its location, but I did see a *lot* of other stuff from inside her head. And then Tess forced me out and used some kind of plasma lightning against us... Lonnie tried to fight back, but soon it was clear that we either had to scram or get toasted. We ran."

"And a few moments later, Max found Tess down there," Liz said, seeing how it fit together. "She couldn't explain why you guys had left, because Max would freak if he realized that Tess had that kind of firepower at her disposal. So she tried to pretend that she was disoriented enough from the mental attack to not remember."

Rath nodded. "And the stuff I saw inside her mind... I don't generally mind having a rep as hard-core, but that chick's thoughts frightened even me. She hated you and your other human friends, Liz, well, except for this Kyle Valenti guy, who she kinduv had the hots for. Resented the way Michael and Isabel... and especially Max didn't want to get on board with their 'true destiny.' I saw all kinds of plans and fantasies inside that innocent little blond head... couldn't tell the difference between them a lot of the time, but still it had been chewin' on me. Max was a stand-up guy, and even though Michael and I have our differences, by this point I kinduv understood him a little. Didn't really like the thought of Tess using them like the whole galaxy was turning around her... or Isabel or you, Liz, even Maria and Alex."

"I'd gotten a bad vibe from Tess myself, the few times that we'd met," Ava put in at this point, "but I told myself it was nothing. Nobody else seemed to like what they saw when they met their opposite number after all. But when Rath started to tell me what a bitch she really was, I agreed that we had to do something. Even if we weren't really sure what... if Tess had been more than a match for Rath and Lonnie, she could definitely kick *my* ass even with Rath watching my back."

"Don't sell yourself too short," Liz put in. "You're stronger than you think... even stronger than Lonnie, in the important ways, for my money."

"Vixen's gotta point," Rath muttered under his breath.

"Okay, so, um..." Liz mumbled. "Back on track. You came back to Roswell in secret at this point? Maybe tried to watch what Tess was up to without letting her know you were there??"

"Not quite," Ava put in. "First, Rath convinced me that we should try to find Lonnie, see if he could convince her to back us up. With all three of us, we'd have a fighting chance against Tess no matter how many nasty tricks she'd learned... not that either of us wanted it to come to that."

"We found her," Rath added, "She'd moved a bit from our old 'hood, but not far... the lower west side, running con games on the newbie rubes, and cleanin' up pretty good. I gave it my best shot, shared what I'd got from Tess with her, but she didn't care. She wasn't going to Roswell again ever, and that was that. So I swiped some of her take for plane fare to New Mexico." Liz couldn't help laughing at that twist ending, though it definitely seemed in keeping with the way Rath and Lonnie used to behave with everyone else.

"It didn't take too much effort to get set up here in Roswell. When Ava and I toned down the true Manhattan style and took care not to look much like our opposite numbers, no-one seemed to pay any attention. Didn't take long to figure out that Tess was up to something that she didn't want any of the rest of you to find out about... mysterious phone calls and email messages. She left town secretly, and Ava tailed her... all the way to Las Cruces, where she met up with Alex at the university... the poor kid was freaking out until she gave him a dose of a super-brain-warp, and then it was like he was another guy, you know?? Ava passed me the news, and I was able to ask around, carefully, and find out that everyone here in Roswell thought that the guy was in Sweden on a student exchange program."

"So... wait a second," Liz interrupted. "You *knew*?? You knew what Tess was doing to Alex, and you didn't let any of us KNOW??"

"Calm down, cornball," Ava said softly, sounding uncertain like she was trying to soothe a little girl she wasn't too familiar with. "We were both pretty freaked ourselves, and not sure if Tess was suspecting that she'd been made. If either of us just popped out into the open, Tess woulda found some way to keep us from spillin' the word."

"And if we'd tried to make contact secretly," Rath put in, "how were we supposed to get Max or the others to trust us, compared to Tess, who they thought BELONGED with them? Well, at least, more than we did."

"You could have come to me, Ava," Liz insisted. "We would have found a way. But I guess the two of you were cowards. The hell -- Alex didn't *have* to die!!!" She was nearly screaming now.

"Actually... I didn't die." It was the last voice Liz ever expected to hear -- to really hear with her own ears instead of in her mind, again... and she whirled to the tall, gawky figure standing at the edge of the room. "It's good to see you again, Liz."

"*Alex*???!?" Liz gasped, beyond shock or startlement now. "Buh--- but *how*???"

"Long story," Alex quipped, stretching his arms as if inviting her to come over and give him a hug.

Maria's phone rang just as she walked longingly past the little makeup boutique on the second floor, east wing, and she brought it to her ear in a second. "DeLuca speaking."

"Um, hey, it's Max. This isn't very important, but, umm..."

Maria smiled a little as she headed for a free spot on a bench. Max Evans never seemed to be that sure of himself on the telephone... well, not when it wasn't a crisis situation. "Hey, I'm not busy or anything. Spill what's on your mind, bud."

There was a brief laugh from Max. "Um, well... I was just wondering if you'd heard from Liz recently."

Maria thought about that a second. "We chatted last night, not about anything much. Our friends and wondering when they might get back and what they'd have to tell us about." Max would understand that veiled reference. "Haven't talked to her today, but then I didn't really expect to. Why??"

"Just trying to track her down."

"Well, she should be on shift at the cafe now."

"I already tried there," Max said. "Jose said that she took off about half an hour ago -- slow afternoon, apparently."

"Hmm, that does sound a little odd for Liz," Maria said. "I'll have to ask her what the deal is when I go in... assuming that she's back for the dinner rush."

"Yeah," Max said, sounding a little reassured. "Listen, are you... can you talk freely??"

Maria looked around. She didn't tend to get paranoid just because she was on a cell phone, but... "I'm at the mall right now, just window shopping a little. Can call you back from the car or something."

"Ummm..." Max hesitated a moment. "Yeah, that'd be cool, thanks. I'm at home."

"Okay. Ring you back in five." Maria headed back out to the parking lot, (thinking regretfully of all the nice clothes that she wasn't letting herself spend hard-earned money on,) and hit the 'dial last caller' button as soon as she was in the driver's seat of the Jetta. "Hey, me again."

"I would never have guessed," Max's voice came back dryly. "Okay, well, Liz told me about the... well, the future me thing."

"Oh, right," Maria agreed. "Pretty weird, huh?? I mean, it sounds strange enough to me... I can hardly even imagine what it must be like for you, considering that... well, it was you."

"Weird??" Max repeated. "Okay... the girl I love broke my heart and pretended to sleep with her ex in order to break my heart... so that I'd hook up with the girl who killed her best friend and almost betrayed me to my worst enemy. And a time travelling thirtysomething edition of me put her up to it. 'Weird' doesn't really begin to cover it."

"Yeah, I haven't really got my head wrapped around that part myself," Maria said, "except that, when Tess skipped town the first time around, you didn't realize that it was really better that way."

"Yeah," Max agreed a little bitterly. "But it sounds like that was the only plan that Liz and I were able to come up with to stop the end of the world... and it's pretty much a no-go now. What does that mean for us??"

"That you've got at least a few years before you need to start obsessing over it?" Maria suggested. "Also... well, this might sound weird, but... even though Tess' reasons for seducing you weren't honorable - she's going to have your child. That kid is going to be twelve years old when whatever it is goes down... which is young I know, but as much as I dislike his mother personally, he's going to be quite a guy. Maybe he'll be able to change the way things happen."

"Wow," Max mumbled. "My son with Tess as the savior of the Earth... I don't think I can even begin to come to terms with that idea at the moment."

"That's okay, it's pretty out there I know," Maria agreed. "Well, I hope you find Liz. Just try to be honest with her, and let her know how much you love her, and I think the two of you will be okay. Did she mention how she's doing on the 'you and Tess' front??"

"Not out loud, but I know it's hard on her," Max muttered. "She understands that I was in a dark place, influenced by Tess' powers, but that doesn't change the fact that I slept with her worst rival and had a child with her. I don't think she knows of a way to get past that. If it were me, well..." He laughed. "That's the worst irony, isn't it?? The very thing that she pretends to do to me, with the noblest of motives... I go and do the real thing back to her, for all the worst reasons. And now we're kinda too messed up to know where to go next."

"Well... I hope you figure it out."

"Thanks, Maria. See you tomorrow at Kyle's place?"

"Uhh, yep. Bye."

"Bye." She hung up the phone, trying to remember what was tomorrow. Oh, right, they had a little meeting scheduled, just to keep in touch on the ongoing conspiracy, not that there was much need for an update lately.

Well, she had decided something. Maria got up to head back into the mall. She was going to buy that gorgeous black silk top, and maybe try a new set of blush and lipstick. Life was much too short to *always* save up for tomorrow.

"I'm hungry," Tess grumped. "All that stuff we ate or drank in the granilith seems to be draining out of my system like it was never real in the first place... which I'm not convinced it was. And I didn't have anything since noon, the day before we left, because the problems with the baby were killing my appetite."

"You see anything that looks appetizing, feel free," Michael told her. "Just don't bother me about it." Tess was right about the insubstantiality of their trip inside the granilith, but on the other hand, Michael wasn't sure that he'd burned any real energy while they'd been inside... he'd appeared here on this planet almost in exactly the same physical condition as he entered. Of course, he'd been able to grab a quick breakfast with Maria right before heading off to the pod chamber... the second last time he'd seen her --

Tess had gotten up from the wooden drum of tree trunk, quite like the ones that Michael and Isabel were also using as chairs, and started to stalk the narrow strip of firm ground outside the shelter. There was a sound of some kind of activity, and Michael groaned and got up to investigate when he heard Tess muffling curses. "What is it??"

She pointed at some kind of amphibian. "I'm hungry enough to actually try frying and eating one," she said, "but they're quick, and I can't use fire or lightning safely with all this water around. You're better at using just pure force to attack, Michael -- wanna help me catch my dinner??"

"No, not right now," he said brusquely. "Amphibs can be poison -- I think that probably holds true on just about any world." A pause. "On the other hand, I think there are probably roots on that plant that are edible... and safer, if you're REALLY starving."

"Ehhh... I don't like the idea of roots," Tess mumbled, and shoved past him to go back into the shelter. Michael followed, and found that Isabel was trying to get his attention as he returned.

"I'm worried about those clouds," she said, indicating the far horizon off at about two o'clock. "Might be a windstorm strong enough to blow this lean-to straight away."

"Hmm." Michael looked at the odd blue clouds hanging in the faintly orange sky and nodded. Groaning, he headed back out of the shelter and into the swamp water to get a better look. After a few paces, he put his hand on the huge rim of the granilith cone to steady his balance... and gasped.

All of a sudden, he was more aware of that weather pattern than he could possibly be of anything with just his usual human senses. Trajectory, wind speeds, cloud densities, precipitation patterns, and anticipated forecasts just flooded into his mind. "Oh, wow."

"What is it??" Shooting one look at Tess, Isabel hurried over to join him. "What is it, Michael??"

"I... I can't explain it," he said, gently lifting his hand from the surface of the granilith and noticing the sensor data just kind of 'switch off.' "Put your hand on the granilith and tell me what you feel, if anything."

Shrugging, Isabel did... and drew in a surprised breath herself. "The... the colony, it's about twenty-five miles that way." She pointed off... well, if the storm was still approaching from two o'clock, the direction she was indicating was about nine-thirty. "Or a settlement of some kind at least, lot of buildings all close together. There are parties moving around the edge of the swamp in some kind of ground vehicles... but I'm not sure that they're equipped to come in after us, even if they know that we're here."

This was another shock to Michael. Somehow he'd expected that if Isabel got anything from the granilith, it would be the same thing that he'd seen -- but then, she hadn't been focusing on the storm the way he had. He resumed his own contact. "The storm is going to be here in about ten minutes, with hurricane-power wind and some kind of precipitation that might be caustic. We cannot stay here." He thought a moment. "Judging by the directions, we should probably head directly for that settlement of yours."

"How??" Isabel replied. "Even if we can tow the G behind us, we can't outrun that storm slogging on foot through the mud."

"No," Michael said, getting an idea. Tess had moved closer by this point, standing at the edge of the firm ground where they had built their shelter... she still didn't want to get her feet wet again Michael guessed. "Not 'behind' us. I've got an idea... damn, but to use the granilith for anything other than sensing, we'll need the key again. Do you have any idea what happened to it?"

"Oh, no." Isabel looked back to the shelter pointlessly, then started vainly searching her clothes. "Do you suppose it's still back on Earth??"

"Wouldn't make much sense... that would be like designing a car to drop its ignition key on the ground wherever you start it from." Michael started to search the smooth granilith cone itself for anyplace that the key might be retrieved... then stopped as he realized, quite to his amazement, that the long crystal stick that was the granilith key was strung onto the chain running from one of the pockets to another on his jeans. He stared at it for a long moment. "This wasn't here while we were still inside... I know that much." He tried to remember if he'd noticed the chain since emerging in the swamp, but couldn't. Wouldn't he have felt the extra weight before this??

"Maybe it was inside the granilith mechanism as long as we were travelling, and got returned to you automatically when we emerged," Isabel suggested. "Because you were the one who had been driving. I have to admit, stringing it on the chain was a nice touch."

"Rats, foiled again," Tess muttered, splashing into the swamp water now. Michael wondered what might have happened if Tess had gotten the key when they'd emerged, and known how to do something dangerous with it and the granilith... and fought back a shudder. They'd dodged a danger he hadn't even thought of.

"Too bad, so sad," Isabel quipped at Tess. "Okay Guerin, what's your plan??"

Michael didn't answer in words... instead he took a firm hold of the key in his left hand, touched the granilith cone again with his right, and focused on Isabel. Suddenly she was rising into the air... and Michael concentrated, manoeuvring her up and dropping her into a 'riding' pose on the very top of the cone. (The point of the cone was now lifting straight up into the air so that the top of it was a flat line. The bottom of the cone rim was only barely skimming the edge of the water... the granilith cone was now levitating itself too. Just how Michael wanted it.)

"Hey, how the heck am I supposed to... huh."

"Stay on??" Michael called up in reply to Isabel's complaint. "Does that answer your question."

"Umm... I'm not sure," she replied. "Not exactly sure *how* I'm staying on, but I seem to be. So if you can keep whatever you're doing up, I guess it's not much of an issue."

"Okay. You still got a firm bead on the settlement??"

"Yep."

"Alright then. You'll be the navigator, and I'll drive from the stern." He turned to Tess. "Your turn."

"Riding the granilith??" she repeated dubiously. Just for that, Michael started levitating her into the air without waiting for Tess to indicate that she was ready... settled her a little back from Isabel, and then took position just behind her.

"Right forty degrees," Isabel called as he was getting himself settled, and Michael made what he hoped was an appropriate change in the way the cone was pointing. Geometry had never been his best subject. He also lifted the cone up a bit higher so that friction in the water, or running into swamp plants, wouldn't be a problem.

"Let's just get moving!!" Tess exclaimed. Michael risked half a look backward, and realized that the storm winds and hissing of the first rainfall were visibly approaching across the wetlands. Hoping for the best, Michael pushed the granilith forward at maximum juice.

For the record, the granilith can do zero to eighty miles per hour in about 3.1 seconds. What's more surprising is that none of them actually fell off.

TO BE CONTINUED...


	4. Chapter 4

Divergence 4

"Alex??" Liz jumped up, staring at the familiar face and not quite sure whether her eyes were playing tricks on him. Impulsively she reached for one of the hands that he had spread wide, just to feel the fingers beneath her. They seemed extremely solid, (well, as solid as you'd want fingers to be at least,) warm and entirely human. Somehow that didn't really help her make much sense of the situation.

"This... this... if this is some sort of a trick, I will be EXTREMELY pissed at you," she warned Ava. "Alex... Alex died. I saw his body. Max freakin' tried to bring him back from the dead, for cripes' sake! Which, which means that whoever or whatever is standing in the room with us, that it isn't really..."

"Do you want me to try to *prove* that I'm the same guy that you've known since we were ten, Liz??" Alex, (or whoever) asked, shaking his head a little regretfully in, Liz had to admit, exactly the way that Alex probably would have. "I can try to go through exactly what you told me to convince me not to go to Topolsky about the blood switch thing, or anything else you can think of, but that's going to take a while. Or... you could first listen to our explanation about what really happened when you all thought I died, and why, and make up your mind about that."

Liz tried furiously to think about that, looking at Ava, and Rath, and back to whoever might be wearing Alex's face. "Go through it however you like," she said sadly, "but I can't say I'm going to be easily convinced." And she sat down, folding both arms across her chest.

Alex laughed nervously. "Umm, sorry guys," he said in a stage whisper to Ava and Rath. "Maybe I should have waited for my cue at that, but I couldn't stand to let her think for another second that I was dead... and to be honest, I guess I was assuming that she'd hug me so hard she'd nearly crack my ribs and babble for a minute and then everything would be good."

"It sokay," Ava told him.

"As far as the body you saw," Rath put in, "If Max had examined that a little closer instead of just trying to get it breathing again, he'd probably have noticed that something was wrong, because that thing was never really human. I think I did a decent job of making it look like Alex here, but that thing was really made outta two pieces of roadkill that I morphed into him, while Ava was saving him from the scene of the crash."

"But... but that crash was arranged by, by Tess," Liz stuttered as she tried to play cross-examiner. "*SHE* was convinced that Alex was dead, I'm sure of it. So how...." She couldn't even figure out how to answer that question.

"Maybe we'd better back up a little," Alex told her. "I went over to Valenti's place as part of a pretty stupid 'sting operation', trying to get Tess to say something incriminating on tape that we -- Rath, Ava, and I -- ccould take to Max and Isabel to back up what we would tell them about Tess. Ava had managed to put a kind of 'mental shield' over my brain, but when Tess started to panic, she broke through the shield, and my body went into a kind of suspended animation as a side effect. Tess thought I was dead, so she arranged the fake car accident to cover things up, and Rath and Ava couldn't stop her. They got to the scene of the accident just before the police did... Ava took out what was left of the block and revived me from the death trance, and Rath... well, you see how that part fits in now I think, right??

"Yeah, a little. But why??" Liz had to blurt out. "Why would you play along with her scheme, why fake that you were really dead??" And then the answer hit her.

"Because we couldn't afford to have Tess suspect that we were on her trail," Rath put in. "If she found out Alex wasn't really dead, she might well try to kill him again... er, well, TRY to kill him for the first time, since I don't think she actually wanted him dead that time. But if she thought that she couldn't keep him quiet with her powers any more, and rather than let him tell Max what he knew.... well, you know. Even a mysterious disappearance of his body would probably get her thinking the wrong thing...."

"What if you could have come to Max directly, the day after he saw your body??" Liz pressed. "If Tess only found out after he knew the truth...."

"We actually discussed that at the time," Ava said. "Two things.... one, we thought that Max, even you, might not believe that this was the real Alex and not a shifter." She laughed hollowly at the irony there. "And two, well, what do you think Tess might do if she thought she had lost everything?? We didn't really want to find out."

"So, what do you think, Liz??" Alex asked, biting the tip of his tongue.

"It kind of hangs together, assuming that things like that mental shields, death trances, and transforming dead animals into dead people are possible," Liz said slowly. "Which, given the kinds of things I've already seen, they don't sound too unbelievable. But, well, I'd like to ask you a few trick questions at this point anyway Alex... just to try and put your identity as much beyond doubt as possible."

"Ever the seeker after scientific precision," Alex said softly. "Okay, ask away."

"Where did we meet, as in first actually speak to each other??" Liz asked. "And when??"

"In the ravine woods, up halfway to Mesaliko," Alex repeated without hesitation. "Seven years ago. You were trying to catch a lizard to bring in for science class, and I was playing knight of the round table in the woods around Camelot with a toy sword and shield."

Liz smiled. "Umm... not sure if *you'll* remember this one actually, but what was the slide you were showing me when you went off on the 'travel is so amazing' soapbox?"

Alex smiled sadly. "That would be the northern lights... which I never really saw, of course, but we'll leave that aside for now."

Liz smirked as she delivered her final clue. "Scream 2 and notting hill."

Alex groaned. "Oh, do you *really* want me to tell Rath and Ava about the time I accidentally walked in on you and Maria when you were changing??"

She got up. "Not really, but it doesn't matter now." She rushed over and tackled him. "Alex, oh my gawd, I can't... well, first off, I'm kinda sorry that I had to give you such a hard time about it all, but..."

"I understand," he said in a friendly whisper. "This once, you had to be absolutely, positively sure."

"And... and you're alive!! You're... umm, do you guys know about, about Isabel and..."

"We've kinda picked up that they left the planet," Rath said. "Isabel, Michael, and Tess. Did they go home or..."

"Not exactly," Liz explained. "After we... once it was clear what Tess had done, err, I guess I mean what she had tried to do, or something... anyway, I told Max that he couldn't let her bring the Granolith to Kivar. So Michael and Isabel have taken her to a colony world... Stellyfroos Gamma or something like that. They're hoping to find friendlies there."

"So she really was working for the sunuvabitch," Rath muttered under her breath. "I thought there was something about a secret covenant in the memories of hers I glimpsed, but I... I could hardly believe it."

"Well, we'll sort all that out in due time," Alex said. "By the way, Liz, good questioning technique. You didn't pick on a single thing that, say, someone who had ransacked my memories before I died would have been likely to see as important."

Liz smiled faintly. "Okay, maybe we'd better go back and pick up the original narration now, from before we were..." she beamed at Alex... "interrupted. You guys were watching Tess secretly, had found out that Alex was really in Las Cruces, then what??"

Ava smiled faintly as Alex sat casually down on the floor and Liz's eyes followed him. "Well, it wasn't very long after that Alex 'came back from Sweden'... we kept watching, figuring out that he was either keeping Tess' secret or that she'd managed to change his memories... another thing that we've never been able to do with our powers." She chuckled dryly. "I actually managed to go undercover and eavesdrop, mindwarping so that you'd only see me as some other high school girl who you probably wouldn't notice even if you saw me."

"Right about then, as you probably remember, all of that stuff about Laurie Dupree, the gandarium, and the hive queen hit," Rath put in. "You guys were running around so much that it was hard for us to keep track of what was going on where, but we were there in Frazier woods when you discovered that Alex and Kyle were trapped in the Gandarium cave." Rath shook his head, scoffing under his breath. "If you and Max hadn't been crowding around the cave opening so much, Liz, and Tess and Isabel some of the time too, I'd have sent a rock into the barrier crystals at about half the speed of sound, seen if that woulda got them free. But they were okay in the end at least, thank goodness. And Jim Valenti wasn't the only one who was panicking when the entire lot of you disappeared for a Vegas trip, by the way."

"Oh lord above," Liz swore mildly, picturing the scene. "You didn't spot any of us leaving campus??"

"Nope, we were trying to squeeze in a little power training during the day and only showed up a little before the end of classes to find Tess," Ava put in. "Hoping to come up with something that might give us an edge against her. But we couldn't find any trace of you, and neither could the ex-sheriff, and I'm picturing Tess dragging the other hybrids off to Antar and you and Maria and Alex lying dead somewhere... wasn't even sure *what* she'd do about Kyle."

"It was a few weeks after Vegas that we finally got up the nerve to make contact with Alex," Rath said "Tess was starting to spend a lot of time doing 'memory recovery' with Max, and Ava thought that she was probably trying to mindwarp him subliminally with that routine, so we didn't have much time to make our move. Alex wasn't too happy to see us, but Ava was able to get him to remember a bit of what Tess did, and he agreed to work with us to try and take her down. He got the idea of trying to confront Tess with the mindwarp 'wearing off', without letting her know about us, and hoping that she'd say something for the record that we could take to Max."

"Say something for the record..." Liz repeated thoughtfully... they'd mentioned this before, but she hadn't clued in then. "Like, into a tape recorder, made in Korea, that got wrecked in the car crash??"

"Wha... how did you know that??" Alex asked, smiling.

"They found some broken parts of the recorder," Liz told him. "Valenti told us about them just after Tess left, but we didn't know what they meant."

"Damn, I thought I had got all of it," Rath commented. "But, well, no harm done I guess. Sorry that we had to let you think that Alex was dead for so long, but..."

"Yeah, I kinduv understand why you had to do that," Liz assured him. "I think Max and the others will too, if we tell them right. They'll probably be so happy to know that Alex isn't REALLY dead that forgiving the rest won't seem so hard." She sighed. "Assuming that I can convince them more easily than you were able to convince me, that it's really you."

"Yeah," Alex agreed. "I can't wait to see them... but I still can't afford to get recognized by anyone outside our little circle. After all, I'm still legally dead, and there isn't really any way to explain to the authorities that the body that was identified by my parents and on and on wasn't really me."

"Yeah," Liz admitted, frowning slightly in thought. "It was a *very* good likeness Rath... excellent detail work and all that. But I've got the makings of an idea I think. After all, if we can come up with some flimsy excuse as to how... nobody would really be able to challenge your identity, not for long."

"What kind of flimsy excuse are you thinking of, Liz??" Ava asked.

"Not sure yet... maybe that it really was Alex, but he really wasn't dead?? Buried alive syndrome... we can work out the details later." She took a deep breath. "For the meantime, how about if I bring some of the others here as soon as possible? Max and Maria, maybe Kyle too if I can get them all together."

"Beat us to suggesting it," Rath admitted.

"And I'd like to make one suggestion.... this time, I want them to meet Alex first. Once they're satisfied that it's really him and start asking for the reasons why, we can bring you in."

The three of them exchanged looks. "Worth a try," Ava put in.

"Yeah, I was going to suggest the same thing," Alex said. "It made a little sense to do it this way for you, since it had to be Rath pretending to be Michael and doing the go-fetch run. But now we've got a genuine original, as it were."

There was a bit of an awkward pause at that. "Okay, well, I'd better get going home, on that note," Liz decided. "Probably better for you not to expose yourself and risk getting recognized as Michael, Rath... I can just walk over to the bus stop and get home from there. But... if I get an opportunity to bring Max or Maria here, or Kyle I guess -- will you all be here? Or do I need to get in touch with you in advance??"

"I don't expect to be going anywhere else, and at least one of the clone patrol will be here with me most of the time," Alex replied.

"Speaking of getting in touch..." Ava rushed over and got a little scrap of paper for Liz. "There's a pager number on there, and some useful code sequences to punch into it to send us messages. Not sure how quickly we'd be able to get back to a phone, but one of Rath or I will get the message if you place a call."

"Okay." Liz hugged Alex goodbye, and hugged Ava too, and somewhat awkwardly thumped Rath on the shoulder. "I won't be staying away long, believe me."

----------

Michael was having difficulty steering the Granolith cone through the swamp, something that, quite possibly, no-one else had ever tried to do before. Even though the device seemed to have lift to spare, he wasn't at all sure about taking to the air considering that some kind of alien hurricane was about to bear down on them at any moment. On the other hand, staying in contact with the ground was causing its own set of problems, since the 'ground' here was a mix of slimy water, bars and ridges of earth, and stands of vegetation and trees popping up in the most unlikely places. So far, he had tried to make straightforward progress as much as possible by staying in contact with the water, and clear of the other terrain features, but this was becoming more difficult... they had already crashed jarringly through two thin strips of woods.

"That storm-head seems to be getting closer," Tess warned them as snidely as she well could under the circumstances.

"What? Impossible, at this speed," Michael scoffed.

"Umm, I think she's right Michael," Isabel clarified. "It isn't catching up to us, but more storm seems to be developing, closer than the storm that was already there. If that makes any sense."

Unfortunately, it kind of did. Michael groaned and tried to keep their makeshift vehicle stable after it bumped into a bar of solid earth, sticking up out of the water. "If that trick keeps up, there's no way we'll be able to make it to shelter in time."

"Not... not the way we're going," Isabel repeated, an odd tone in her voice. Michael realized that she was connecting to the Granolith even more deeply than he was, tuning into it's sensors of the surroundings and trying to co-ordinate a mass of data into a possible answer. "The weather patterns, they're only moving in this direction. To either side... I, I think that there might be some kind of artificial stormbreakers set up. If we proceed at an angle, we might be able to get out of the path at least. And maybe rendezvous with one of the search parties."

Michael considered it. "Worth a try. What's the best heading??"

"Umm... try that way." She pointed about fifty-five degrees to the left of his current course. (Wow, geometry class must've finally stuck that last time - he was actually thinking in degrees instead of 'one sixth of a circle' or whatever.) He turned the Granolith accordingly, and gave it a little elevation and all the speed it could get. This was kinduv their last chance to avoid the brunt of the hurricane, or whatever it was.

The winds hit them, and some kind of weird rain that itched a little on Michael's skin and seemed to develop a flaky residue, but it didn't really hurt, and very obviously things were worse behind them, and getting better as they fought out of the path. Michael noticed some kind of odd little squat machines installed on high ground every few hundred yards or so... were these the source of the storm break?? They didn't seem to affect the Granolithmobile much, except for maybe a tiny bit of drag that Michael could be imagining, but they could manipulate the air patterns a lot differently than a very large and massive alien relic, (and the hybrids clinging to it any way that they could.)

"Angle back the way we were going before, Michael," Isabel suggested once they were clearly out of the entire storm except for a few stray wind gusts. Michael reoriented once again, and it didn't take long before he noticed something about delivery van-sized, driving along a patch of solid ground. Then he realized that the 'patch' was actually the end of the marsh, some kind of grassy terrain dotted with inhuman shrubs.

He hardly had time to think about his response before the passengers of the 'van' had clearly caught sight of them too... it turned to move closer, though not quite intercept his course. Michael slowed down, and when they were about forty yards away the van came to a stop and several people came out.

Michael stopped too, looking for every detail he could. This was, after all, the first time that they got a look at alien individuals on their home turf, not wearing humans skins or whatever to protect themselves from Earth air. They looked almost disappointingly normal... a little on the short and skinny side, compared to the people Michael was more familiar with. Oh, and their skin, that of the first few individuals that he saw at least, was blue to blueish-gray tones. They had hair that was worn long and loose in the back, black hair, vibrant red hair, (fire engine red, not orange-brown like natural human red hair,) and a kind of a yellow-ish green hair. Face and body structure seemed very subtly different from true human, but very similar.

He pulled the Granolith carefully closer and then set it down, a little awkwardly, so that it would stay stable without the lifting circuit active. Then he scrambled down, making sure that the 'key' was still secure on his pocket chain, and walked towards them. Out of the corner of his eye, Michael could see Isabel following him. He waved at the colonists. "Hi."

"Zabba frequin jjo va vaa dee?" one of them said in confusion.

**Oh, boy. We kinda forgot about this part, didn't we??**

------------

"Liz, where have you been??" Maria called as her best friend hurried through the back door of the Crash. "Clara and I have been just swamped since the dinner rush started!"

"Ummm..." Liz looked around, put her antennae back on, and picked her order book up from where it was sitting on a counter in the back room. She was still in her waitress uniform. "You, you would not believe me if I told you, so let's just get to work."

Maria frowned, not at all satisfied with that evasion, but things were too busy to try to squeeze anything more out of Liz directly, so Maria let things sit as they were. She watched Liz as she started rushing around, delivering food, taking new orders, and ringing up bills. And as Maria watched Liz, over the course of the following two hours or so, and exchanged quick small talk with her whenever there was a break, she was hit with a surprising series of revelations.

FIrst off, Liz was *happy.* There was a kind of supressed joy, something that had made nearly everything all right with her world, and that she was trying, for the moment to hide. But Liz was someone who tended, fundamentally, to wear her heart on her sleeve, (her participation in secret alien conspiracies notwithstanding,) and she couldn't entirely hide this thing, whatever it was, from someone who had known her for more than twelve years. It didn't seem to be anything romantic, as far as that went, or anything involving Max. Something had changed a little bit more fundamentally.

Maria weighed that puzzle as she tended to her own tables, still stealing glances at Liz as often as she could, and suppressed a groan after three different tables asked her, (well, some person at each of the tables asked her,) if she'd reccommend the will smith burger or the new martian probes basket. (That was chicken fingers under an amazingly corny name.)

Could it be that Isabel and Michael were back?? No, that wouldn't explain Liz's reaction... first of all, because she would have whispered the news to Maria first thing when she got in... Maria was certain of that much. At least, there was no reason she could think of that Liz would keep Michael's return a secret from her. And Maria also didn't think that news like that would account for the full depth of Liz's hidden joy... sure, she would be reassured and happy that they were back, but it wouldn't be world-changing news to her.

And then, it hit Maria exactly what would be world-changingly joyful news to Liz, and the shock of the moment nearly made her drop a tray of drinks. (There was a little spillage onto the tray before she had stablized everythng, but that wasn't nearly as the tumblers getting entirely upended on the floor of course.) She quickly gave the customers their drinks, asked if everything was fine and if there was anything else they needed, and quickly rushed out into the parking lot to try and put her thoughts in order.

Did Liz think that Alex was... was *back*?? As in back from the dead, or that his death had been some horrible misunderstanding or hoax that she had now seen through?? Maria could understand the temptation to entertain an idea like that, of course, and had had daydreams of Alex coming back, but in more rational moments she recognized those for frank denial. Nobody should have to come to terms with the pointless death of a brilliant, sensitive seventeen-year old, but the facts were facts and eventually had to be faced up to. Lord knew that they had found more than enough facts to establish the circumstances of Alex's death... and Liz had been the one to lead that campaign.

Well, she had been trying to find some sort of meaning in Alex's death, and the final answers had been nearly as degrading and insulting as the early stories about a freak car accident or suicide, Maria decided. She hadn't even been able to indulge in any daydreams of payback, after finding out that the culprit had been Tess, because the circumstances of the other girl's pregnancy, (and who the father of her child was,) had forced them all to, essentially, let her off scot-free. Michael and Isabel would be looking for some sort of appropriate situation to place her in, but their choices would probably be limited enough that any desire for Tess to suffer wouldn't be an important criterion... not compared to the security of the baby at least.

So, had Liz suddenly had some sort of breakdown, so overwhelmed by her grief about Alex's death that she had slipped solidly back into a strange form of denial? Or, was it just possible that there was something that they had all missed... some answer that could bring their dear friend back to them??

Maria hardly knew whether she should dare to hope.

So she went back inside and started to fetch alien-themed desserts for tables five and seven.

------------

Isabel shared a blank, terrified look with Michael. They were facing seven aliens now, each of whom had said one or two sentences in their language, and which neither of them knew what to make of. How could they have missed this? Well, they had had only about twenty seconds to plan this particular incarnation of the plan, and that helped. But even back when all four of them had been planning to go directly home to Antar, it had occured to nobody that they didn't know how to speak the language... and that nobody there would know how to speak English. (Not, at least, unless a Skin or somebody else who had gone undercover on Earth had returned to the homeworld, and if so they would probably have been working for Kivar and not to be trusted.)

"Arrgh shclee tavvravar...." The new voice speaking in alien-ese was Tess, and she went at it for quite a while. Isabel's blood nearly froze in her veins. If Tess could speak their language, she could tell the natives any sort of tall tale, and make sure to plant the seeds of distrust about Michael and Isabel themselves. At such time as independent translation could be sorted out, (starting from the traditional 'point and say name' technique or something like that,) the damage would be done, and Tess would be firmly in charge. She might even be able to convince them to take the Granolith key away from Michael and give it to her, and then she could re-launch it, (after the one-day ignition sequence again,) and jet back to Kivar, giving him the one thing that would consolidate his power.

How was Tess doing it?? Had Nasedo taught her fluency in Antarian, but not been able to have time for the written text of the language?? (If she had known how to read it, she wouldn't have needed Alex's help with the book... always assuming that was in Antarian script.) As Isabel watched, Tess awkwardly shimmied down off of the cone herself, keeping one hand in contact with it as she carried on a dialog with the native leader.

The granolith -- maybe that was it!! It had already shown them a number of unique powers since they had landed... maybe it was allowing Tess to speak the alien language. Fiercely, she scrambled back to touch the cone herself, realizing that she had to figure out what Tess and the others were talking about as soon as possible.

"...planet called Earth... how to explain... incredibly backwards, and... maybe you heard the..." Sequences of translated words were shooting into Isabel's mind, along with rules about how to interpret the word order in the original language grammar. She frowned, trying to get a full sense of what was being said as quickly as possible. Was Tess trying to sell them out? She'd pretty much have to be, wouldn't... "--how the royal four were... died and sent off someplace else to grabble grak froxx?"

One of the aliens, purple skin and a ridiculous kind of chartreuse mane falling halfway down his back, made a circular head motion. "Grarrk, we have heard about some of these things, but never ffliznfped to meet varggra of you. This is a remote world, not of much klinntashin. Why have you come?"

Isabel opened her mouth, ready to try 'speaking' in the alien language using the granolith, but then realized she couldn't be sure the connection would work well enough that way. If she was able to speak alien words, but garble the meaning, she might horribly offend these people, which was the last thing they needed. And Tess beat her to it.

"Well, you'll want to chat about these two about it, once they get hip to the lingo. I think she understands some of what we're saying, now," Tess replied, pointing at Isabel. "Myself, well, I'm the hostage. Pregnant with a baby that I shouldn't have gotten... it really does get pretty complicated. They brought me here to try and deliver my child into safe hands... and bring back the... umm, our spaceship, kinda."

Isabel blinked in surprise. Tess had played straight and not even tried to torpedo them, apparently, or at least she'd changed her mind after realizing that Iz would catch her at it. And she hadn't even 'accidentally' let slip about the real nature of the Granolith, which could be a tricky point until they found the right people to reveal it to.

"Umm, hi," Isabel said slowly, and it was clear that this far, at least, the translation effect was working. Michael had realized what was going on at some point, and had his own palm against the cone surface too. "I'm Isabel, this is Michael, and you've already met Tess."

"My name is Keryel Gorn, of the Vvantas settlement," an alien woman replied. "There is much we have to talk about, but perhaps not here. There will be particulate rain that gets through the storm breakers, in the height of such a Vvurcane, and it would be better to strike out for shelter as soon as we can. Is your... your craft able to carry you any further??"

"Yah," Michael replied. "You guys want to lead the way??"

"That will be... acceptable," she replied, bending her head and upper body backwards for a moment. Isabel sighed, realizing that she'd have to learn an entirely new system of body language to figure out what was really going on around here.

----------

Maria hardly let Liz lock the dining room's front door and flip the 'open/closed' sign around in the window before jumping on her. "Okay, girlfriend, spill it, what's going on, and does it have anything to do with Alex??" It belatedly occurred to Liz that Maria had been so insistent to Clara and Mark that they could leave early, after working so hard that day, and that the two of them would be fine closing up by themselves. She had wanted privacy for this conversation.

"Actually, yes. I thought it would be better to tell everybody at once, tomorrow, but you kinduv do have a right to know." Liz dropped down onto one of the booth benches. "Only, I'm not quite sure how to start."

"You think Alex is alive??" Maria prompted under her breath.

"How... how did you g-- you didn't meet him too, did you? Because he didn't say anything about..."

"No, of course I haven't met him!" Maria burst out, and then caught herself. "Sorry, Liz, but even an unpleasant truth is still true; you know that, my pretty little scientist girl. You... you saw them bury him, and you know that Alex would never be able to pull off digging himself up that far. Not enough upper body strength." Maria caught herself. "Sorry, that's really a joke in poor taste, but I have to admit I'm not quite sure how else to react here. As far as how I could tell you were thinking that... I dunno, I guess I just put it together. You came in here as if everything was suddenly right with the world again, and certainly that's the only thing that would have such an effect -- on any of us."

"Okay," Liz replied. "What they buried, what they pulled out of that car, it wasn't him. You can accept that that much is conceivable, right??" WIth an imperative gesture, she waved Maria over to the booth, and when the other girl reluctantly sat down, Liz dropped her voice to a thin whisper. "Aliens can do that. Given their powers over the molecular structure of matter, why not? Find something, or some things, that are animal and dead and about the right weight, and shape shift them until they look exactly like a particular, dead, teenaged boy. None of us ever really looked at *it* that closely, at least, I didn't. I don't think you could bear to either. If someone could get the face more or less right, nobody would really even worry if one arm was a little too long or the skin wasn't quite the right shade. It's not like trying to impersonate a *living* person that way, and we know at least one alien who could do that too."

"Okay, okay, umm, I guess I'll give you the benefit of the doubt on that one," Maria insisted. "First off, which alien? Alex obviously couldn't do this himself, and none of the usual suspects seem to fit. Max, Michael, or Isabel would never try to fake Alex's death. Tess certainly wouldn't, not considering that just trying to COVER UP her involvement in the mess was so much trouble for her. Nasedo is toast, and even if there are skins or whatnot lurking around, they don't seem to have anything to gain by it." She sighed. "And, well... you say you've met Alex, Liz?? Like, today? How can you be sure that you weren't getting mindwarped, or shaking hands with a shifter??"

"There are a few obvious suspects you left out on your list, Maria," Liz pointed out. "The dupes, who are still unaccounted for, and at least one of whom has a motive to help a friend of mine, though it's actually a lot more complicated than that. As far as knowing that it's not a trick... well, he knew things that only Alex and I, and I guess maybe you, know. I didn't tell any evil aliens, and I think that I would remember if I'd been mindraped for those secrets. How about you??"

For a second, Maria was actually tempted to make up some wild story just to try and puncture Liz's certainty, but she knew that would be pointless. If she knew Liz well enough to guess what had happened, Liz knew her well enough to see through a lie on the spur of the moment like that. "No, I don't think anybody found out that kind of stuff from me." She sighed. "You're that sure it was Alex? Fine, then I wanna meet him too."

"Sure, fine," Liz agreed.

"Right now," Maria added, and Liz blinked in shock. "As soon as we can get this place locked up!"

----------

"Nice to meet all three of you," the tall, blue-faced Antarian said once the introductions were complete. "Welcome to Vvantas settlement, Stellynfrus 3. All that we have built here, consider yours to use as one of us."

Michael nodded vaguely. They were trying to get by without constant contact with the Granolith at this point, having figured out how to 'download' an Antarians basic vocabulary pack into their minds, and it also seemed that he was able to remember the new words and usage rules much more easily than ever before. But some things were still a little confusing. The last sentence that the settlement leader had said seemed vaguely to be some kind of ritual declaration of hopitality, but if there was a required reply, Michael didn't know it.

"Thanks, that's very kind of you," Isabel replied in Antarian. She had always been better at basic human courtesy than Michael, and translating it literally seemed like their best bet at this point. "Gird... do you mind if I stick with calling you Gird, by the way, instead of trying to remember and correctly pronounce the whole mouthful."

"Gird will be alright, Isabel" he replied with a good-humored outward breath. Gird didn't seem to have any problems with their names, but then he was just dealing with three strangers and a slightly strange situation, instead of a strange land full of strange people, strange language, strange gestures, strange plants and animals, strange machines, strange buildings... and so on and so forth. "I realize that you're still hardly started getting used to our land, but there are a few realities of the situation that need to be addressed as quickly as possible."

Uh-oh, this sounded bad. "Kivar??" Michael asked.

Gird nodded. "By unfortunate chance, there was a starship loyal to him in the area when you approached our star. Just a small patrol class vessel, a little over three gilocs away. But they have to have noticed the Granolith's approach, and we've detecting a shock wave that probably indicates they're heading for our planet at maximum speed."

"Umm, what was that unit of distance, by the way?" I asked.

He blinked in surprise. "A giloc... it's one of the standard units for interstellar distances. It... our people generally measure fractions of a circle in units of one five hundredth, by the way, which is a 'kev.' The distance from the Antarian sun at which a theoretical star would be observed to vary against the background constellations by one kev, as Antar orbits its sun, is defined as a giloc."

"Ohh," Isabel muttered. So, it's basically their variation of a parsec, Michael thought to himself, and probably a little bit smaller, assuming that the distance of Antar from its sun was about the same as Earth's. "Do you know what the warship will do? Will you be able to hold out if they attack or send troops to invade the settlement??"

"In reversing order, 'for some time,' 'yes,' and 'I have a pretty good idea.'" All three of the hybrids took a moment to sort out that response, inverted from what they would be used to in yet another cultural difference. "A ship like that isn't really equipped for atmospheric flight, or planetary bombardment... they could probably find a few things to throw down at us that'll blow up, but nothing that would breach our defenses. A landing party, on the other hand, is another matter."

"Kivar has modified all of these Ch'nar class scout ships so that they're equipped to go after rebels out here on the borders," Gird continued wearily. "There'll be several aerodynamic shuttles in what used to be the cargo bays, and some nasty land assault vehicles. On the other hand, we are not entirely unarmed either. I expect that we'll be able to hold them off for several days or more, but not to overrun or drive off all the enemy troops."

"So it'll be a standoff, for that long," Tess said musingly.

"A siege," Michael corrected absently. "And what happens then?"

"Frankly, I'm not really sure, because after a few days we and that patrol ship won't be the only players in this showdown, not with the... well, the five of you up for grabs," Gird admitted with a sigh. He started counting them off. "One, two, three, four for the baby, and Granilith makes five. If that commander realized what he was after, he might have already sent word ahead to the Fleet base at Mardarrha, seven and a half Gilocs distant -- Kivar's closest outpost. Myself, I've sent words to the other settlements here on our world, not that the support they can offer is that much. Also I sent off a carrier wave signal to my contact in the Rebellion network, but I'm not sure how quickly they'll be able to respond in force."

"Sounds nasty," Isabel said, shuddering.

"We don't want to start a war here," Michael said, shaking his head angrily. "If there was a way that Tess and the baby could be safe here, we might just blast back off in the big G, heading back for earth. Nothing else can catch it in warp flight, right??"

"Indeed," Gird replied, nodding his head. (Had he picked tha gesture up from the three of them already?) "Somehow the Granilith is able to achieve kinetic warp quanta several levels above our best speedships. But Kivar's forces would search every cup of mud on the planet. They'd realize that it was unlikely for you to risk the Granilith simply to come here for a quick consultation. The possibility that one of you had been left behind would be too obvious."

"Could the other rebels take Tess away??" Isabel asked. Tess seemed more than a little frustrated to hear her future discussed as if she had no say in it, but she simply sulked, realizing that no-one would be glad to hear her opinions at this point.

Gird brightened visibly at that, (literally, the color of his skin changing at a moment's notice.) "Possibly, if they could arrange for a sub-ether shielded vessel -- one that Kivar's people couldn't track."

"A cloaking device??" Michael couldn't help but ask.

"Umm... what does that mean?"

"Umm, sorry Gird, it's an earth pop culture reference. A kind of technology that hides a spaceship from all observers and sensor devices."

"Umm, yes -- more or less." Gird still seemed confused by the reference... possibly he hadn't understood the full meaning of 'cultural reference' and was wondering if humans had more space technology than he had thought.

"Is there anything we can do to help you get ready??" Isabel asked.

TO BE CONTINUED...


	5. Chapter 5

Liz took a second just blinking in astonishment. Technically she didn't really need to, as she wasn't horribly surprised by Maria's demand, but it seemed just about as good as any other way to occupy the time while she figured out a plan. "You're sure?? You want to try and go see Alex tonight, no matter what? No matter who else might be there, and no questions asked?" She did her best to make that last part seem ominous, wondering if she could frighten Maria off, though it seemed unlikely. Also, the more vaguely scary she could be, the more Maria would be slightly prepared for meeting Rath, and she would have less grounds for resenting Liz keeping his involvement a secret, though Liz didn't want to actually mention his name yet.

"Umm... yeah, yes I'm sure," Maria managed to stutter out.

"Okay then, cell phone?" Liz replied, holding out her hand. "I left mine upstairs somewhere today... don't think you want to wait for me to find it."

Maria surrendered the handset without a word, and Liz dug a small scrap of paper out from her uniform pocket. "I'll just give Ava's pager a ring, before we start to close up. She said she might not be able to get back right away, so we'll head over once we're done either way."

"Umm, Ava?" Maria repeated vaguely. "As in Tess' punk clone from New York? Liz, are you sure that we can, well, you know..."

Liz had already punched in the code for 'need to come over ASAP,' added Maria's cell number, and hung up the phone. "Yes, Maria, I trust her. If I hadn't, then Max would have been squashed flat by a platform on that Manhattan sidewalk, and Lonnie would have earned a free ride home off it. Think of her as an absolute opposite to Tess."

"No, there's only one person I know who's quite that good and sweet, to qualify as Tess' polar opposite," Maria replied, "and I'm looking at her. Okay, well, let's get at it."

Maria was in a manic energy cycle, and Liz was herself feeling excited about going back to see Alex, and bringing another of his best friends in the whole world to visit. It seemed like only a few minutes before all of the necessary cleaning chores were done, and the two of them left by the side door. Then Liz locked it behind them, having already locked the dining room front door from the inside.

"No reply from the page," Maria noticed aloud. "I know you said that wasn't necessary, but I'll just ask once: Liz, are you sure about all of this?"

"Yes," she insisted fiercely. "Where did you park?"

"Umm, across the street, just outside the UFO center," Maria replied, and Liz led the way over to the car, waiting by the passenger side door until Maria switched the master locks up. "Head west on second, and I'll tell you when to turn left."

The drive proceeded in tense silence, much as Liz's earlier trip this way with Rath had, except for occasional directions. Finally they had parked, and Liz led the way once again, to the abandoned house that three unlikely conspirators had appropriated.

"This is where Alex has been hiding out?" Maria asked dubiously.

"What did you expect, the Ritz? Granilith chamber?? Or maybe he was just sleeping in the geometry classroom," Liz shot back, and instantly regretted it. "Sorry babe, it's just been a long and kinda strange day, and you were getting on my nerves a little. Umm, err... I guess I'd better knock, and both of us stand where we can be seen easily from the windows. They're being careful about visitors, I should expect." Suiting action to word, Liz rapped as loudly as she could on the heavy door, ten or eleven times, and then hustled Maria off to a point in about the center of the long-neglected porch. They waited one minute, and then two, with no obvious response from within.

"Umm, maybe they didn't hear," Liz muttered, worried that she was seriously losing credibility here.

"Well, how about the doorbell this time?" Maria suggested evenly, pointing to a small round button set in the wall where Liz hadn't noticed it in the mix of twilight and streetlight shadows.

"Umm, I'm not sure if they have any electrical power to run it with..." But Maria had already run forward and pressed the button, and sure eough a low and mellow DING-DAANGG-DONG could be heard from inside. The two of them waited a little bit longer, maybe thirty-five seconds, and then there were footsteps audibly approaching inside, and the distinctive sound of a deadbolt going *Thwunk* as it was levered back into its socket. The front door opened, but only a crack. "Get in here, you two," a low voice called out to them.

Liz followed after Maria nervously, guessing what might happen next. Inside the dim front hall, the other waitress was getting her bearings, fathoming the familiar, shadow-cloaked face of the person who had let them in.

"Michae-- no." She shook her head, caramel brown waves of hair flying all over the small room. "Not Michael. Dupes. Rath. What the hell do you have to do with Alex?"

"He got a look inside Tess' head when she was there in New York," Liz filled in, "realized she was trouble, came here to Roswell to try and figure out what exactly she was up to. With Ava. If it weren't for the two of them, Alex would probably be dead for real, or dying at least, and who knows what Tess might have pulled with Max and the others. Rath was the one who helped pull Alex out of that wrecked car, and created the fake body we saw buried." Turning to the young hybrid man she had been talking about, she continued. "Hey. Ava out on the town?"

"She's picking up a few supplies and possibly hitting the intenet cafe, if it isn't too busy, for a little research," he replied. "You looking for the guest of honor?"

"Pretty much," Liz replied. "Maria might feel more at ease if you gave us plenty of space, to start out with at least."

"Hey, sure, go right ahead. He's in his bunk, up the stairs and second on the left." Rath smiled faintly and shuffled backwards a little.

"Wait a second," Maria put in, stepping towards the duplicate of the one she loved. Rath turned back towards her, and was entirely caught by surprise at the ringing slap she delivered to the side of his face.

"Maria!" Liz exploded while Rath was still stunned silent. "What the heck was that for?"

She delivered the answer to the one she had punished. "For snaking a kiss from Liz, when she thought you were Michael!"

"Umm... yeah, okay," Rath replied slowly. "I guess I do deserve that, yeah."

"Are you quite through avenging my honor?" Liz quipped sarcastically. Maria nodded silently, and so Liz led the way up the stairs and to the room that Rath had indicated. Some kind of faint music could be heard within.

Liz knocked on the door and called out at a volume she judged to be loud enough to be heard inside. "You've got two visitors, Whitman."

There was a flurry of sounds from within that went on for a little while, and finally the door opened, revealing Alex in a brightly plaided dressing gown that had clearly seen better days, though it still performed its role adequately. "M... Maria!!" he exclaimed, looked almost ready to sweep her up into a giant hug, and then changed his mind. "Are you gonna give me the third degree too??" he asked softly.

"Umm..." The question stymied her for a long moment. "Well, I know that Liz has probably covered the ground much better than I could, but yeah, I kinda need to hear something that only, well, at most the three of us would know."

Alex smiled. "Okay, well, I've had a little while to think of some good ones. In november of '98 you had a huge blowout fight with your mom about you wanting to join a band, and having to help her with the family business, and what clothes you could wear to go out with Liz on Saturday nights, and you packed up everything you thought you couldn't do without, and were all set to steal the Jetta and drive off to Dodge City and, umm, either live with Billy Darden's parents or convince him to run away with you and sing on the street corners of New York for pocket change."

"Whaat??" Liz asked. Maria shot a dirty look at Alex.

"Well, I figured just in case you thought Liz might be in league with an impostor, better to start with something not even she knew," he explained, a lopsided smile dominating his face. "And it's kind of time she learned about your sordid past, Maria."

"Okay, I'm convinced you're the genuine article," Maria conceded. "No alien impostor could quite match that trademarked 'Alex Whitman' twisted sense of humor. But... but how??"

Alex shot a look at Liz. "What have you told her?"

"Only a few bits and pieces," Liz admitted. "She thought I had gone looney when I showed up for my shift actually happy, and once I'd convinced her it was even possible you were alive, she insisted on seeing with her own two eyes."

"Yeah, I guess I'm not surprised at that," Alex admitted. "Well, come on in guys, no reason to stand out in the hall." He led them into a dim room, obviously squatted and scrounged in the same way as the rest of the house was. On an old futon sat a slightly batterred accousti guitar, missing one string. "Well, I guess you can probably imagine how surprised I was to walk into my living room one afternoon and see two hybrid clones waiting for me. What was worse neither of them were even Isabel's... yeah, I know Lonnie is pretty twisted and a remorseless killer, but I gotta say, those tattoos? HOTT!!"

Liz laughed softly as she sat on the dresser top, (which seemed just about solid enough to support her weight,) and listened to Alex tell the tale from his own point of view.

----------

The much-mentioned 'get-together at Kyle's place' the next day never really happened, or at least, it didn't happen at the Valenti house, or start at the time it was supposed to have. Maria was insistent that the news be spread to 'the guys', ie Max and Kyle, as soon as possible, and she got Liz and Alex to agree to that after about ten minutes of repeating herself. The result was that all seven of them, Alex, Ava, Kyle, Liz, Maria, Max, and Rath, (going alphabetically,) met up at the abandoned house early the next morning. The story of how Alex's death had been averted was told all through again, as well as what had led up to it and what had happened afterwards.

Kyle and Max seemed to show the same conflicting emotions that Maria and Liz felt even more strongly... frustration that they had been left out of this inner secret for so long, overwhelming relief that Alex was actually okay, and ironic bitterness at the obvious fact that of all of them, the one who would be happiest to know that Alex was back, the one person of all who possibly loved him most dearly aside from his parents, was currently completely unavailable to get the news.

"Don't worry about it," Alex insisted when Max brought it up. "Isabel will be fine, and she'll be back soon, I'm sure of it. In the meantime, what do we do about my folks, and about... well, letting me walk around in public without getting the catholics up in a lather? Liz, you mentioned you had part of an idea yesterday. Any progress??"

"Things are starting to come together, yeah," she said. "First thing, well, on the face of it we're going to need to dig up the grave and get rid of Rath's fake 'body'. No matter how we handle your reappearance, someone, officially or unofficially, is going to get the idea of finding out exactly what, if anything, is in the grave if it isn't Alex, and possibly testing whatever they find. You never mentioned exactly what it was, Rath, but I'm sure that the DNA and the cell structures aren't human, and that's just not anything we want someone else to find out about. So, the grave will have to be empty, which raises its own possibilities. Maybe we don't worry about coming up with an explanation of what happened to Alex, just have him come back home to his parents and let anyone who worries about the mystery come to their own conclusion."

"Hmmm..." Kyle considered this. "So, grave robbing. Sounds like something off of 'Buffy'. Should we do it tonight??"

"No time like the near future, I guess," Ava said. "As soon as safely possible, whenever that would be."

"Probably the later we can leave it, the less likely anyone else is going to be sneaking in," Maria agreed. "So, do we leave the grave open or something, so that it looks like he might have dug himself out, or like someone else might have??"

"I think that would be pretty transparent," Liz put in. "Remember, it's been, what, about three weeks now since he was buried? No way anyone could have survived that long without fresh air, food, or water, no matter what his state of health before. But, well, if do our best to make it obvious that the grave was dug up again after the body was put in, and then sealed over, it might not be easy to know for sure WHEN that happened."

"I think I get it," Max replied. "Funeral home finds an empty grave, realize that they've lost a body. Rather than admit it, which could be bad for business, they cover the grave back up and hope that the family didn't notice. Might have happened only a day or two after Alex was buried, or so we might be able to convince people."

"Yeah, sounds like that could work," Rath replied. "There's... there's something else that I should probably tell you guys. You mentioned Isabel, and how she'd want real bad to know that Alex is still with us, but can't 'cause she's not in the sector, right??"

"Umm, yeah, definitely," Alex replied after a moment of stunned silence. "Didn't you... no, I guess I never really talked about her to you guys, did I? Sorry, I just didn't want to get myself bummed out about her, in addition to the homesickness and cabin fever I was already struggling with."

"I understand," Rath mentioned. "But, well, maybe you shoulda said something earlier. The thing is, I know somebody who's learned a bit about sending messages long distance... like, truly impressive interstellar distances. Should even be able to get the news to Isabel, if she and Michael headed where you thought they did."

"Who??" Kyle asked. Max and Liz guessed the answer before Rath said it.

"Lonnie, of course."

---------

The sound of a syncopated rapping dragged Michael away from fairly passionate dreams about Maria. "Damn, what is it??" he called out, tried to sit up in bed... and fell out of the hammock quite awkwardly. Ohh, yah, right.

When the two of them had finally allowed helpful colonists to show them to rooms where they could spend the night, Michael and Isabel had already been bone-tired. There'd been so much to learn from the Antarians, (and a few members of other species who lived there,) and a lot that they could do to assist in preparations for the looming attack. It had been a most unpleasant surprise to find out that the beds available were subtly incompatible with the human spines that they had inherited from that side of their DNA. Something about the way a supportive framework had been built into the matress made even lying down on it uncomfortable for them, and forewarned of incredibly sore muscles if they should actually try sleeping a night like that.

Realizing that even fabricating a jerry-rigged cot with an even distribution of padding could take a while and divert resources that might be better put to use elsewhere, Michael had suggested the hammocks as a simpler and more efficient alternative. Now, testing the status of his body, he was starting to regret the bright idea.

At first he thought the stream of unintelligible sounds were a manifestation of his own frustration, but then he realized that they seemed to be coming from the door. "Oh no." As if they didn't have enough problems, his translator pack must have worn away. They were probably asking if everything was okay, after hearing the noise of his fall.

Picking himself up, Michael considered. He had practiced enough in Antarian the day before to acquire a decent vocabulary... and that should still be available if he tried hard enough. 'Good morning, what news?' was 'Karivna shebvli ccor davvanz,' and that sounded like it should do. He repeated the words, paying due care to the pronunciation, and strained his brain to decipher whatever reply came back.

It wasn't *that* hard, when he was trying. "Are you alright, sir Guerin?? Girdachliquen would like to meet you and your companion for breakfast."

Michael smiled. Breakfast he thought he could cope with... the Antarian food they had had last night put earth cuisine to shame, as far as a hybrid palate was concerned, and of course lots of it was REALLY spicy and REALLY sweet. "Yes, I'm fine. Does protocol allow for bathing before eating?"

"Ummm... yes, of course m'lord. There is a sanitary antechamber adjoining your room... look for a small black square a little above waist height on the wall. It'll be touch-sensitive, to control the portal."

"Oh, right, thanks," Michael replied, thinking that he should have expected that much. These people seemed to have a deep-seated dislike of doors that actually looked like doors. Quickly Michael was able to find the appropriate touch pad, and a hole appeared in a place that had been solid wall an instant before, leading into a small room

Michael had had experience with Antarian bathrooms the day before, at least. (Natural functions and the grime of the swamp had been among their most important concerns when they got to the settlement proper, after all.) Some of the details seemed quite unusual by human standards... instead of utilitarian sinks, the standard seemed to be fountain-like devices that could be controlled with respect to the temperature of the water they jetted out, and how high it went, along with basins of various sizes that could be used to catch some of the water at a convenient height, then dump it out into the fountain drain. There were also no towels and cloths as Michael was familiar with them, but puffy sponges of a range of sizes and textures that could be used for the same purposes. Soap, or the equivalent, was a powder that fizzed and foamed up when it got wet. The overall feel was a little bit decadent, but Michael thought he could get used to decadence.

The actual waste disposal unit, on the other hand, was quite similar to a relativly fancy Earth toilet. (Maybe that was the only design that would be functional for a humanoid life form... Michael couldn't really think of anything significantly different that would work as well, at least.) This bathroom also had a few touches that the one he'd been to before didn't include, such as a small pool that was situated where it could get filled up with fountain water... definitely larger than the biggest bathtub he'd ever seen before. (Not that different in size from a jacuzzi hot tub though, maybe.)

Soon enough, Michael had taken care of everything that was needful in the sanitary chamber, including trying to clean off his only clothes a little bit. When he got back into the bedroom proper, he immediately looked for another contact patch similar to the black one, and found it in a moment. Taking a deep breath, he pushed it, and another doorway immediately materialized, leading out on the corridor, where a young Antarian was still waiting for him. "Okay, I'm ready for breakfast I guess."

"Very good, m'lord. Is it your pleasure to wait on Princess Isabel?"

Michael smiled. "As long as she won't *take too long!*"

Isabel's voice sounded through the opposite wall from Michael's room, in English. "I'll be TWO minutes, Michael."

It seemed more like three or four, but Michael didn't check his watch until he had already been waiting a bit. When the second door whooshed open, Isabel stepped through, definitely not in the Earth clothes she had been wearing for the trip in the Granilith. Instead, she was clothed mostly in a one piece dress/tunic that Michael had noticed some of the Antarian women here at the settlement wearing, in a deep purple color that set off her rich golden hair strikingly. "Where did you get that??"

She looked at him for a long moment, as if it were a truly stupid question. "From the dresser, in my room." Oh. Now that he thought of it, there had been a large blocky piece of furniture in Michael's quarters too, with a column of controls down one side of the front, but he hadn't taken the time to experiment. Maybe each button would have opened up a different drawer or something like that. Well, for now he felt more comfortable in human clothes - going native could wait.

----------

"What news of our enemy patrol ship?" was the first thing that Michael asked when they were led into the room. Gird was sitting at a table about as big as the Evans' dining room table, and he had started on breakfast without them.

He smiled a welcome, (smiles, at least, seemed to mean pretty much the same thing among their two cultures,) wiped his long multiple-jointed fingers off on some kind of cloth napkin, and consulted a small mobile data screen a little smaller than a palmpilot. "Almost here... they'll have to make transit from warp space to the relativistic universe any moment now, I think. They'll be in range to send a transmission in about a day-segment." (That term indicated a little less than an earth hour, Michael had figured.) "But we'll have more than enough time to worry about them later. Sit, eat your fill, and while I have a free moment we can talk about other things."

"Um, okay." The two of them pulled up stools to the table, and Michael reached for a few things that looked like they'd taste good. Some of them turned out to be good, but in an opposite way than he'd expected... the soft, flat, fluffy round reddish-pink items tasted like garlic bacon, while the brownish crispy, crunchy sticks were like raspberry and pancakes. Well, they went well together anyway, and he poured some of the sweet red-purple drink that he remembered from yesterday into a beaker.

Aside from small talk about if their quarters had been comfortable, the settlement leader didn't raise much conversation for a few minutes, and Michael and Isabel were both too hungry to talk much on their own initiative. Gird's mini-palm beeped at one point and he looked at intently for a few seconds, but Michael decided not to ask if that was about the patrol ship re-entering normal space.

"I realize it might be hard to come up with anything that makes much sense to one of us," Gird said, maybe once he had decided that his guests were no longer attacking the food with as much urgency, "but I'm very curious what it has been like for you, living and growing up again on Earth." Michael and Isabel exchanged a long look, thrown by the request even though they probably should have expected it.

"Umm... I have to admit, I'm not quite sure how to explain it," Michael started after a moment. "We grew up in Roswell, which is a small city mostly surrounded by desert. But there's way too much of earth to be described in a few sentences, or even a few days."

"Yes," Gird agreed after a moment's thought. "I suppose that would be true of practically any planet supporting intelligent life. The same of the people??"

Michael struggled to find a few generalizations that weren't hopelessly unfair. "Some of them are... amazing, especially in the way that they accepted us after finding out that we weren't truly their own kind. And some of them are still... well, a little narrow-minded, or afraid. That's not too hard to understand under the circumstances I suppose, though I've run into a few humans who took the distrust approach WAY too far."

"When I think of Earth now, I guess I think of my adoptive parents most of all," Isabel said. "They... they found Max and I out in the middle of nowhere, and I think my Mom fell in motherly love with the two of us right then and there. They took us to the authorities first, because they had to see if our 'real' parents could be located. Back then, they had no way of knowing that our only true blood relatives were light-years away, and even we didn't understand it back then. But... Mom and Dad raised us as if we were their own. I'll never forget that they loved me enough to do that."

"I think that tells me a little of what I was wanting to know," Gird said after a moment. "Well, you had better eat up. The enemy captain will be calling through soon, and you probably shouldn't be here when I take the call. Unless you can think of a good reason to be, that is. I just thought it would give him information that we have no reason to surrender at this point."

"Yeah, I guess that makes sense," Michael. "I'm sure that there's more that we can do to help with the preparation... just find Niiki or someone else with anything that needs doing, right?"

"Yes, I imagine so. Ohh, I forgot to mention that I've received word from the underground. A small task unit will be here in a little over three days, including a 'cloaked' hyperskiff that is often used to allow Royalist leaders to travel between stars without Kivar's fleet monitoring the comings and goings. Tess will be able to leave aboard that vessel, and the two of you can return to Earth in the Granilith then if you wish. After that, Kivar's ships will hopefully see no good reason to engage our reinforcements in battle."

"Umm, Michael," Isabel broke in. "I'd actually like you to come with me and talk to Tess. There's some things I think we need to ask her. And if I can get some quick guesses from you, Gird, about what options she'd have, if any, after the baby is born."

"Ask Tess questions?" Michael repeated, a little uncertainly. "But why?"

----------

"I have to admit, I'm a little curious about that too," Tess said to Isabel. They were sitting on metal armchairs inside the guarded quarters that Tess had been assigned. "What makes you care what I'd have to say??"

"I don't believe in being dragged down to the lowest level, Tess," Isabel said shortly. "Not when I absolutely don't have to let that happen. You were scheming to take our choice away, essentially. Sure, you didn't force any of us outright to say that we'd go back to Antar with you in the G, but you conspired to manipulate the circumstances well enough that every other option looked like it was closed to us. Right?" Tess nodded slightly, and Michael was signalling his agreement with what she was saying much more clearly.

"Well, I don't believe in tit for tat. Even though you didn't grant us the same privilege, I think that your right to have a say in your fate is important enough that I'm not going to take that away from you. That's not to say that I'll go along with whatever you ask... there are consequences to your actions, and other people who have a stake in your future now, like, say -- MAX. But the least I can do is let you speak your piece. Do you still want to go back to Antar, say?? If we give you up to the patrol ship, you'll probably be taken to Kivar there."

"Yeah, right," Tess sighed. "I'm not sure if you'll have thought this through the same way already, but I can't afford to go to Kivar alone, or with nothing but Max's baby on the way. That's not nearly the leverage he wants. According to the most generous possible reading of the old deal that Ed made, we... now I, was supposed to deliver at least two of the rest of you, or the Granilith, or all of the above if I could. The privations that royal supporters will put me through look like mercies, compared to the hospitality I'll get if I show up on Antar without any of those things."

"Okay, that's fair," Michael said gruffly. "One choice out of the way. We talked to Gird about what you can expect from the rebellion, by the way. If you're interested."

"Of course I am, don't be stupid Michael," she grumped.

"The meat of it is, you'll be under constant guard and restricted movement until the baby is born," he said. "You won't be allowed to raise him or her yourself, or even be close to the child much. We've all agreed..." and he shot a look at Isabel to make sure she was still resolved, "that you've forfeited a mother's usual rights with what you did, and what you tried to do."

For a second, Tess' look of stoic calm cracked, and Michael could see the utter misery in her eyes. A few tears dripped down her cheeks. "I... I kind of expected that, though it's gonna be hell," she whispered. "What else??"

"Probably no other specific punishment," Isabel answered softly. "The rebels have enough to worry about without guarding you in jail for the next seventy years or however much you deserve. You can probably try to earn their trust and join in the army if you want, or find a colony world or somewhere else to settle down, if you don't raise any more trouble."

"Hmmm." Tess thought about that. "Could be. A place like this, they probably wouldn't ask too many questions, if I was willing to do my part. Or I could try going to Rahlicx; that's Larek's world. He always had a soft spot for Ava -- maybe he'd take me in and protect me, even knowing what I did."

"Could be," Michael replied evenly.

"But, what if I wanted to... to go back to Earth??" Tess blurted out. "I know I won't be able to hitch a ride with you guys, and getting a ship that will take me such a long way won't be easy. But..."

"Gird mentioned that possibility," Michael replied. "Frankly, I think the two of us had a hard time with the notion that you'd ever want to come back to Earth. You were always the one who wanted to come back 'home' at any cost... and I guess I do mean ANY cost."

"But I can't really go home, not now," Tess replied softly. "And I guess I've just now realized that I'll always be much more of an outsider anywhere in the Antarian sphere of influence than I was on Earth. Back there, we could blend in, we'd been tweaked for it. And... it really is the world that I was born, and where I was raised, though not terribly well. Here, no-one will ever be able to see past my human face, and the story of my betrayal."

"Forgive me if I don't have too much sympathy for that," Isabel snapped. "I think that, speaking for myself, if you can get your ass back to Earth and want to live there, that's fine. So long as you don't bother us, or cause any trouble that comes to bite the people I love in the butt. I don't like the notion particularly, but I don't really think we have exclusive rights to the planet, or quite enough justification to exile you from it after your baby gets taken away. Michael??"

"I'm not sure," Michael admitted. "We're not the only ones who have a say in it, and I don't really want to make a decision for Max, for Liz and Maria and Kyle. Even for Mister Valenti, for Alex's parents who don't know the truth about what really happened to their son." He sighed. "And by the time you get to earth, it'll be too late to come up with a negative answer. Maybe you'd better just stay away, unless you hear differently from us, Tess. I know that answer might never come, and that's just too bad on you."

Tess nodded slightly, and there was a long, pregnant moment. "Umm, well, we have other things we should be helping out with," Isabel said uncertainly. "Oh, Tess, is that style of bed as uncomfortable for you as it is for us??"

"Probably more."

"And you didn't want to complain or mention anything about it?" Michael asked softly, and Tess nodded once.

"I was actually afraid that they'd just laugh at me."

Michael considered. "We'll make sure you get something a little better. A hamm... no, probably better NOT a hammock, actually. Could hurt the baby if you fall out of it."

"We'll sort out a cot or something," Isabel assured her. "See ya."

"Bye." Tess sighed. "Thanks for coming to visit."

----------

Liz almost jumped when the telephone rang. Debated with herself whether to let her parents take it, like she had told herself over and over she should, and then her willpower broke so definitely she imagined she could hear the little snapping sound. Taking a moment to try to compose herself, she scooped up the phone receiver. "Hello?"

It probably didn't make any difference -- the woman on the other end was so excited she probably wouldn't have noticed anything unusual about Liz's real mood. "Liz, is that you?? It's Gloria Whitman."

"Umm, uh hi Mrs Whitman. What are you c--"

"I... I don't know how to say this other than to blurt it out, how to prepare you except that it's like a miracle," the woman rambled. Liz smiled a very private smile to herself. "Alex is... is here!! He's back, he's alive somehow. I don't really know how to explain it, he hasn't been able to say that much that makes sense of the story yet, but it's definitely our Alex. At least... if the young man sitting in my living room is NOT acually my son, then both John and I are sharing a joint delusion, and in that case, it'd probably still be a good idea for you to come over, so that you can decide that and break the news to us gently..."

"Umm... you're kind of rambling a bit, and I don't exactly understand," Liz said, deliberately overacting, since there was no way that Mrs Whitman would be able to notice, and might completely miss any underreaction. "Something about Alex, and you want me to come over??"

"You, your parents... I've already called Maria and her mother," she enthused. "I was all set to call the Evans place and make sure that Isabel knew, before I remembered that she'd run away from town. Such a shame, I know that Alex would have wanted to see her as soon as possible, but..."

"We'll drive over as soon as we can, Mrs. Whitman," Liz said. "And, um, well say hi to whoever it is for me."

She deliberately said as little as possible to her parents, who were happy to come over to visit, and figure out if Alex's parents were having a nervous breakdown because of grief and loss, or if something really weird was going on. Liz had to fight hard to make sure the private smile she was feeling inside didn't show at all.

----------

Things were already a little crazy at the Whitman house by the time the three of them got there. Liz's mother and father each visibly blanched a little at the sight of Alex... Mom was about to say something when Dad touched her arm, just slightly. She looked up at him, caught a subtle message in his eyes. and nodded slightly.

Alex smiled at the little moment. "Mrs Parker, Mister Parker. I can understand that you're surprised... I don't understand what's happened myself. But it really is me."

"I'll vouch for that, Jeff," Amy Deluca put in. "The poor boy has been answering so many questions, he must be long past tired of it, so please don't you start."

"Ummm... hmph," Jeff Parker sat down on the couch, a frown on his face. "Well, then I'll ask the rest of you. Do we have any idea what really happened??"

"I'll tell you what I remember," Alex volunteered. "It'd... it'd be less annoying than hearing someone else try to remember the important points." Liz went over briefly to touch the fingers of Alex's hand, and sit down on the floor near him. She was surprised at how bad he looked.

That had been part of the plan that Alex himself had insisted on. In trying to reduce the points of complexity in the picture that they were presenting, draw attention away from Ava and Rath (who would be hard to explain, if found,) and make the 'buried alive' idea more credible, Kyle had suggested that Alex say something about having found himself in the middle of the woods and taken a long time finding his way out, thus explaining where he had been for at least some of the time since his funeral. Alex had agreed with the idea in principle, but pointed out that since he'd been eating pretty well while enjoying the hospitality of the dupes, no-one would believe that he'd been roughing it unless extreme measures were taken.

So, Max had reluctantly connected with his young friend, not to heal but to harm, just a little bit, to make their story believable. Wrecking the stored food reserves and muscle tissue to simulate a long period of semi-starvation, half-healed scrapes and cuts, and several other little touches that the other members of the group had suggested. Then he'd been dropped off where the two-lane highway cut through a bit of Frazier woods, and watched from a distance until it was clear that he'd found a friendly driver to give him a lift into town and the vicinity of his parent's house. At least, that had been the plan, which Max and Kyle had taken care of, and apparently something of the sort had worked since Alex was now here.

"I don't really remember much of... of anything," Alex was saying. "I remember having had a few things on my mind, getting the keys to dad's car. I was thinking of driving out to a place in the desert near the highway, where I liked to sit and think sometimes. I... I don't remember anything weird about the drive at all."

"If, if Alex had some sort of epileptic fit and lost control of the car," John Whitman explained to Liz's parents - this was an idea he'd thought of when hearing the story the first time, "it might explain why he seemed... um, seemed dead after the accident. There are cases in the literature of epilelptic sufferers who've been through trauma remaining comatose for days, with heartrate and breathing so faint that they couldn't be detected without special equipment, and body temperature dropping by eight degrees or more, even a sort of cramping in the muscles from lack of blood that approximates 'rigor mortis.' And no-one would have checked for this specific condition, because... because we had no prior idea that Alex was epileptic." He looked at his son with love and relief. "As soon as there's a chance, we'll have to get you in for an EEG test, to see if that'll confirm it." Maria looked alarmed for a second, but Liz nodded reassuringly at her quickly. If they could make this explanation of Mister Whitman's work, then they would, and otherwise he'd think of something else. The fact that Alex was so visibly alive trumped the evidence that seemed to record his death.

"Yeah, umm," Alex tried to find his place in his own cover story. "The next thing I remember, actually, is waking up out in the woods, in this rather, umm, torn and ratty suit." That had been Ava's bright idea -- the real Alex had never had a suit put on him at the funeral parlor, of course, and the real suit that had been put on the fake body was way too rank to do anything with than burn, along with the body. (After it had been shapechanged out of human form, of course, a precaution that Max pointed out they should have used with Pierce's body, if they'd thought of it at the time.)

But Ava had had the sense to transform some other fabric into a replica of the same suit, aged appropriately, and given it to Alex to change into before his triumphant return to town. "I didn't understand what had happened, but I was able to find some water, edible fruits and berries... make a kind of rough shelter, not that there was really any bad weather. Set a few snares for catching meat, got a fire going after MANY days experimenting with banging rocks together. Explored a bit more of the forest every day, until I finally heard cars in the distance, and followed that sound."

"Hey, I saw you guys on the campout," Jeff said, teasing. "You're not exactly an expert woodsman, Alex, I hate to say."

"What can I say," Alex replied weakly. "Necessity is a mother-- uh, well... I had a lot of time, and some determination, and just worked out what I could from first principles, trial and error. Didn't really do as well as I'm making it sound maybe, but I was able to stay alive, and that's what counts I think."

"Surely," Nancy Parker agreed, coming to his aid.

"Well, what next?" Jeff asked, a little uncertainly.

"I suggest we go down to the sheriff's department," Amy DeLuca said confidently. "Not quite sure how to go about getting an official death certificate revoked, but we're going to need to, and Sheriff Blackwood will know the procedure, or be able to look it up at worst."

There was a moment's silence, and then Mrs Whitman nodded. "I agree. No reason to delay in making it official."

TO BE CONTINUED...


	6. Chapter 6

Sheriff Owen Blackwood looked somberly at the large delegation gathered on the other side of his desk. He had been working late, by habit, especially since he had taken on the sheriff's post, with all of its paperwork requirements. "Well. This is... certainly unusual."

There was an uncomfortable silence surrounding all present as Owen rose awkwardly to his feet, made his way over to the window, and looked out into the Roswellian night.

"I certainly never expected to be asked about rescinding your death certificate, young Master Whitman. However, I happen to be reasonably versed on the procedures involved. The crux of the matter is that you'll be required to go before Judge Lewis, prepared to provide incontrovertible proof of your identity and that you are, without question, alive in the practical and medical senses of the term."

"You seem to have already assembled an ample sufficiency of witnesses, each of whom knew Alex Whitman well and each of whom are seperately convinced that you are he... you are each willing to go on record with that opinion I presume? Being of sound and considered judgement, affirming that you are not relying unduly of the judgement of another of this company in the matter at hand?" His dark eyes seemed to blaze out at the crowd, and after a second Gloria Whitman raised her hand above her head. Mister Whitman and Amy DeLuce followed her lead, then Liz and Maria. Finally, Nancy Parker also raised her hand a little tentatively, and Jeff shrugged a little awkwardly.

"Not quite sure I'm comfortable swearing to that, sheriff," he said, his voice one notch above a mumble. (A stage mumble?) "But I think he'll still have more than enough even without me."

"Fair enough," Blackwood agreed. "Jim?"

"Umm, I've hardly had a chance to speak with him," Deputy James Valenti disclaimed. He had met up with Amy and the others outside the sheriff's station, but he knew more about the circumstances of Alex's return than he was saying. Max and Kyle had made sure to fill him in as soon as they'd met Alex.

"Very well. I believe there is a formal requirement for examination by doctor... to make certain that you are, in fact, alive, beyond all possible doubt." Blackwood chuckled to himself. "Come to think of it, a quick visit to your family dentist might help, since he can check the match against existing dental records and independently confirm the testimony of your witnesses. Having a lawyer to keep track of all this would probably be a good idea... I'm not trying to overrwhelm you with all these legal details, just making sure you understand the realities of the situation."

"Investigating HOW you survived is a seperate issue, and you should not have to wait for that inquiry to be completed before your status is formally corrected. In the interests of ascertaining the truth on that score, though, I would like the permission of the entire Whitman family to investigate and examine the burial site, casket, and anything else we might find in Alex's assigned space in the cemetary."

"Umm... of course, at least I think so," John Whitman said, looking at his wife and son for confirmation. "I can't imagine that any of us would..."

"There are a few personal effects that I understand were put into the casket," Alex blurted out. "If you find them, I'd actually kind of like them back."

"Umm, of course," Blackwood replied after a moment. "You can leave a list with me."

"How soon will you be... um, digging for the coffin?" Mrs Whitman asked.

Blackwood smiled at her as reassuringly as he could. "Probably tomorrow morning. unless some serious crime manifests between now and then."

Maria shot Liz a quick look, which the other girl refused to even acknowledge under the circumstances. They could discuss *that* particular detail once well and truly alone, not surrounded by a number of people who could never know the true story about their little conspiracy.

"Umm, do you wish me to see if I can reach Doctor Harriman?" Sheriff Blackwood continued. "I know that he'd be interested in having a quick look at you, Alex."

"Ummm..." Alex allowed a little nervousness to cross his face. "Is that necessary? I mean... um, well--"

"No, I suppose not. However, it would have the benefit of settling things more quickly, perhaps. I can't imagine that your family doctor would be as pleased about being called out in the middle of the night. Well, the start of the night I suppose."

Alex looked at his parents and took a deep breath. "Yeah, sure, make the call. If you can't reach him, we'll go with Doc Wilson in the morning, how 'bout that??"

Blackwood nodded. "Umm, maybe all of you would be more comfortable waiting outside." It wasn't a question or a suggestion, somehow.

Two young men stood up in the station's waiting room as Amy and Jim led the way out. "So you ARE here," Max said. "We, umm, we got your message Mister Valenti, and something about... Alex!!"

Under the circumstances, Max played up the shock and surprise that he was imitating quite well. He rushed up to the young man and then stopped, as if not quite daring to touch him yet. "You're... but -- but how?"

"The question of the hour," Jeff Parker remarked dryly. "The whole week, perhaps."

"There's a lot to tell, and a lot that still isn't clear," Amy Deluca told him. "Why don't we see if there's enough chairs for all of us?"

----------

"I know, it's a little hard to follow these computerized displays," Lawnii, Gird's daughter, whispered to Michael and Isabel. "The dark green marker is the patrol ship, in orbit relatively high above us, just out of the atmosphere. We don't need to worry about that one, so much. The yellowish one is the first transport shuttle that they've sent down. It's about [three miles] high at the moment, coming at us from the north and east, and the big question is exactly how far away from the settlement it's going to land."

There was a moment of silence as the two of them absorbed that. "Thanks," Isabel murmured back. Several key figures had gathered in the colony's small orbital control station, (located in an underground bunker, which would seem slightly paradoxical except for the fact that it was also a logical command chamber in case of attack.) The men and women of the colony were outside and manning the fortifications - ready to repulse this invasion.

Gird had invited Michael and Isabel to come down here, to be ready in case there was some decision that he needed their advice on, though to Michael this seemed unlikely. More sensible was the possibility that he was keeping them somewhere safe, away from the fighting, where they could see what was going on and would be unlikely to get restless. The patrol captain had made a predictable request, that Gird hand over the ship that had landed two days ago, along with all who had been aboard her, to be delivered to his Royal Majesty, King Kivar of Antar. (He had not specifically called the ship the Granilith or referred to the Royal Four... which would have been added provocation to the colony leader.) Gird had, in his turn, brusquely refused.

"It's slowing down," somebody said, and Michael could easily see that whoever it was was right - there were little graphs showing velocity and elevation over time at the edges of the map, keyed to the transport shuttle. Both graphs had just taken a substantial drop... it must be looking for a good place to land... and the vessel was still well over five miles away from the settlement, too far to be directly attacked by the colonists' defences. The enemy must be planning to use the landed shuttle as a secure base camp... which had been a significant possibility from the start. For better or worse, that decision seemed likely to drag the hostilities out for longer.

Michael watched, feeling like he was standing on pins and needles, as the shuttle finally came to a halt, and for a little while there was no more activity that showed up on the control room sensors, which were not really meant for ground observation. He and Isabel had spent all of the previous day helping out with preparations for the battle, and Michael knew he hadn't been able to sleep much that night in his hammock. Visions of the building being torn apart, of himself and Isabel dragged screaming into a hostile spaceship, kept playing out before his eyes.

Today he'd finally given up on his earth clothes and dressed in Antarian clothes, sticking with fashions that didn't seem too entirely strange... rich fabrics, slightly baggy pants, and a white shirt... more like a wife-beater than anything else Michael was familiar with, but the overall effect didn't look bad in a mirror. Not that the mirrors here were like mirrors on earth... some walls had highly polished and reflective surfaces, but the actual dressing mirrors were made of nothing more than polarized force fields created in the air that would pefectly bounce back all light that hit them. Michael found the effect more than a little spooky... images in metallic mirrors were always a little dimmer and fuzzier than the real thing, but he'd never quite appreciated that fact until he'd seen these mirror fields, which had no loss of light whatsoe---

"We've got action!" Gird called out. Sure enough, while Michael had been distracted, something new had happened on the map... a dark brown blip had developed and was now jetting from the shuttle's landing site towards the colony proper. It had to be moving much more quickly than the ground van that they'd followed here from the edge of the swamp. Was it something that rolled on the ground, or hovered above it, or flew of its own power through the air?? Michael wasn't sure whether he should ask anyone.

Over the long minutes things started to take shape. That first craft was picked up on colony monitoring cameras after getting a few miles closer toward them... yes, it seemed to be some sort of hoverboat, floating several feet above the rough earth without any need for something to hold in an air cushion. Presumably it was supported by forces not yet fully understood by any earth scientists. Several seated gunners and standing riflemen around the edge of the deck, and the pilot was presumably the one near the center, better defended.

Colonists shot from out of the low, bushy trees, and two of the enemy rifle-ers fell, one off the edge of the hoverboat, one back inside it. The rest of them shot back, but it was unclear whether any of them had actually managed to find a loyal soldier or just fired vainly into the branches. One of the gunners swiveled, and his huge mounted cannon shot blue fire... which streaked into one of the trees and slowly became yellow, spreading to other trees whose branches were touching that one.

It carried on for a long time in much the same vein... so much struggle, unearthly weapons arrayed against each other, mental powers also coming into the fighting at slightly closer ranges. Michael found it hard to follow all of the details, but so far Gird's prediction seemed to be born out -- the colonists were holding back everything that the enemy could throw at them, but at a dear cost in the lives of their own people. They're fighting to the death because of us, Michael thought, a pained lump in his throat. Because they believe in what they think we stand for. How would they react if they knew how little we care about them and their power struggles, day to day?? All that Isabel and I really want is to go home, lock the Granilith back away and let the revolution take care of Tess and Max's baby... for the time being at least. We didn't ask to become mascots for their war.

But that, he realized with an ugly sense of pain, had been their destiny before they were born. Probably Rath and Zan and all the rest of them, living back on Antar before the crash, had had as little choice in getting into the power struggles. The vast and impersonal hand of history had chosen them.

Michael was lost in these thoughts, and realizing with a clammy feeling that the shuttle was unloading yet another terrible assault vehicle, when something else started happening on the big map, which suddenly blinked back from short-range view of the settlement and its surroundings to nearly planetary scale. Passing far overhead and not too far from them, the patrol ship had suddenly been joined by another shape, dark gray, long, thin, and mean looking.

"Where the hell did that come from?" Gird asked in a worried tone.

"We can't tell," one of the sensor technicians told him. "There was just a burst of sub-etheric rays and... and there it was."

"Cloaking device," Gird raged. He seemed to like the term by now, though having a chance to use it at this particular moment was giving him precious little joy under the circumstances. "Michael, Isabel..."

"What kind of ship is that?" Michael asked. "Is it Kivar's as well? Will they send down more landing parties, or..."

"There's no time for all of th.." Gird started, and then they all broke off as the new ship, approaching the area of the settlement, still high above, burped out a spark of violet fire which started to stream down through the atmosphere, right at them. "That's a light escort ship," the leader muttered, his eyes still fixed to the screen. "No troops, no landing craft, but it IS equipped for..." The purple spark reached the small white square of the settlement, and a huge explosion was heard somewhere nearby. "Orbital bombardment."

"Uhh, yeah," Michael muttered. That little spark must have been a missile or a plasma fireball or something. Where had it hit the settlement? Had they been able to evacuate anyone first?? Some people seemed to be rushing out, maybe to help with a rescue effort, but Gird had turned to stare at Michael, holding him on the spot.

"We have nothing that can fire back at that escort ship... nothing of our own, at least. If you and Isabel cannot manage to return fire on it, we may have to surrender to save anything."

"Us??" Michael nearly screamed. "Attack something up in orbit? What could we possibly do??"

----------

"Umm, yeah, I think it's up here a ways," Alex said. He, Liz, Alex's father, and deputy Thompson had been out in the woods for over an hour looking for Alex's camp... a camp that they had decided that they didn't need to build before sending Alex back to his parents. Apparently, the IKAA club had underestimated the curiosity of certain people with respect to his sudden reappearance.

Well, Alex was legally alive again, and that was a good thing. The Whitmans had gone to Philip Evans for his assistance with the legal issues, and even though it was outside of his usual specialties, Mister Evans had gotten some good advice from an acquaintance in another firm, and come before Judge Lewis with such a mountain of evidence that the jurist had been unable to find even a smidgeon of doubt. Between the dental analysis, medical checkup, a pile of affadavits and nearly half a dozen witnesses, it had been undeniable that Alex Charles Whitman was indeed alive and present in court, and the medical examiner had been forced to annul the death certificate. Maria almost cheered out loud before realizing that such a thing was kind of frowned upon in a court of law.

"Yeah," Alex continued, turning slowly around to take in the view from every direction. "I know the way from here; I explored in this direction during the daytime on a few different occasions, before making my run for civilization. Ummm... that-a-way." Liz followed at the rear of the party, struck by the beauty of summer in the forest, even in the middle of the serious thing that was happening.

By the time she got there, the deputy and Mister Whitman were already starting to poke around the 'camp' that had been hastily set up not long ago and made to look, as much as possible, as if it had been abandoned days ago. "Don't touch anything," the deputy warned them all, as Alex's dad had been about to pick a makeshift spear, crudely fashioned from a rusty pocketknife blade, one mostly-straight sapling trunk, and some kind of leaves used to tie them together securely.

"Umm, why not?" Alex asked. "After the time I spent here, there wouldn't be any trace of whoever brought me out into the woods. This isn't even quite where I woke up, though I can show you that if you want." He put on a huffy tone. "The only reason to examine this camp is if you still don't believe what I've been telling you."

"Umm, well, Sheriff Blackwood told me to..."

"To help us find the camp," Liz finished. "That's what I heard him say... unless there were other instructions that he deliberately gave you away from Alex's family and friends."

"Yes," John Whitman agreed. "Now, of course, we'll co-operate in the investigation to what has happened to my son in any reasonable way, officer. But there's a fine line between investigation, and harassing a young man who has been through an INCREDIBLY traumatic ordeal." He turned to Alex. "Is there anything you want to take home from here?"

"Umm, no, not really," Alex mumbled. "Actually, I'm just feeling kind of tired and I'd like to go home, if that's okay."

"Certainly," Mister Whitman agreed, shooting a look at the deputy as if daring him to disagree. Shrugging, he led the way back down the path, and then stopped at the first fork in the way, a somewhat confused look on his face.

Alex winked at Liz just once as they walked back to where the deputy's van was parked... picking his moment when neither of the grown-ups could see.

----------

"You are the ones in charge of the Granilith, you have the key and you have some instructions for the use of it," Gird told Michael and Isabel, a tense but calming tone in his voice. "There are well documented instances of the artifact being used as a powerful ground-to-orbit laser. I understand that it might be difficult to master this function so quickly, but we have no other armament capable of taking care of the threat!"

Michael nodded slowly, his mind whirling. Granolith key... that was in the pockets of his new clothes, yes, but what about the instructions? He couldn't remember when he had last had them, and they had said nothing about shooting laser beams anyway... he would damn well have remembered THAT. "Where's the Granilith being kept??"

"It was put into a storage shed off of the rear courtyard," Isabel said softly. "Umm... I don't have any idea how to get there from here."

"Lawnii can take you. It will not be long before the warship is in orbit above us again, and this time I do not think it will settle for shooting only one photonic warehead. In the names of all the stars above, HURRY!!"

And so, with no more words said, they hurried. To Michael, the journey to that small courtyard was a nightmarish whirl of crowded corridors and near-collisions with busy aliens, all with important jobs of their own. Finally he realized that he was standing still, with Isabel beside him... waiting as Lawnii used her powers to activate a restricted energy pattern and unlock the shed door. The young alien girl pulled one door opened and then stayed there, well out of the way. Michael realized that it was his turn now... only the one with the key could get the Granilith to move under its own power. A quick glance at Isabel, but she was already rushing forward to get the other or the pair of doors, and Michael followed at a slightly different direction, bringing the key out of his pocket. He didn't even need to touch the cone before it lurched forward towards the open air, just think about it.

They arranged themselves quickly but silently, with Isabel placing one hand against the Granilith and the other on Michael's shoulder... she could support his connection to this strange artifact, but he would have to figure out what to best do with it. Umm...

Sensors, awareness of the area would be a good step. Michael realized now that spaceships and missiles could not be fought with unaided eyes... they could strike back using computer targetting while still too far away or too small to be seen. As it had before out at the edge of the swamp, the granilith expanded his awareness of the area, but only to a certain extent. It couldn't sense what was going on hundreds or a few thousand miles away like the equipment in the control room could. He tried to have it interface with the control room directly, but that also didn't seem to work for some reason.

He remembered the projected orbital path of the escort ship as it had been displaying before they left the readouts, and didn't see any reason why it should change too much... the captain of the ship would know he had an ideal strafing course and not expect any kind of counterattack from the settlement. So... it would appear from the east south-east, flying past them incredibly quickly. Given the granilith's sensor range, he'd have a dozen seconds or a little more from when he could see it before it was overhead.

Also, it would probably loose its first missile before it was in range, as it had last time. Michael would have to shoot down that warhead first, which would be smaller and maneuvering through the atmosphere, and then blast the escort ship before it could fire again. Assuming he could fire at all.

Michael thought about loosing a test blast first... (or was that Isabel's thought, just maybe? He couldn't tell if he was overhearing her,) but decided against it. The advantage of surprise just might be all that they had, and it was worth more than being sure of the weapon beforehand. Michael waited, each second driving him crazy with impatience, and then, just as he was about to let down his guard, there was a disturbance in the sensor readings.

The warhead. Michael oriented, pointing the Granilith cone directly at the little black spark of death streaking towards them. Fire now? No, even though every second was precious, he had to make certain that this shot would count. The damn thing jerked off to one side, and Michael growled as he tried to get a firm lock that he could depend on. Then the escort ship appeared, and he knew this was as much time as he could spare. *fire it.*

A blast of blue lightning spat out of the cone's point, the backwash of it bathing Michael's head and shoulders in hot air. Ignoring the discomfort, he tried the same targeting lock on the escort ship, not knowing how long he'd have before it fired again, not sure even if the warhead had been hit. As he oriented, he realized that *something* had been hit, and a shock wave and cloud of fire were spreading through the sky, but refused to let that distract them. Orientation nearly complete, and some sort of tubular pipe was in operation on the escort ship, he somehow knew. *KILL IT NOW!*

Again, the blue blast sang out, and this time Michael kept his mental link to the granilith sensors trained on the escort ship... or what was left of it. Most weapons and fire control systems destroyed, targeting computer totalled, hull breached, engine damaged. Most of the crew would have a little time to try to get into escape pods in. "Well, good enough I guess."

Isabel let out a long breath and dropped out of both her link connections, stepping a few paces away from the Granilith cone and breathing heavily.

And she gasped as Michael suddenly swung the cone to a new orientation and started firing all by himself... over and over again!!

----------

Max poked his head into the back room of the crashdown, waved at Maria, and ducked back out into the parking lot. It took Maria a few minutes to make sure that their absence was covered, get Liz, and then both of them slipped outside for their 'break.' Alex and Kyle were waiting with Max, and the five friends quickly headed down an alleyway, trying not to look as if they were having a secret meeting.

"Things seem to be going okay on my end," Alex explained. "Sheriff Blackwood admitted to Dad that the invesigation into how I was dug back up and taken out into the woods has stalled because they don't really have any leads. Mom has talked dad out of taking me in for brain testing just yet, and there's apparently been no significant followup to that little news story on the AP about the boy who mysteriously came back to life."

"Alright," Max said, nodding. "Rath and Ava are still doing okay... I don't think anyone suspects that they're here or how they might be involved, which is exactly what we want. Rath also said that he has a lead on where to find Lonnie, if we're interested in talking to her... she left New York as well."

"Of course we go see the bitch," Maria muttered. "She's the only one we know who can get us in touch with Michael and Isabel... they have to know. And even if it weren't for the Alex thing... I'm getting nervous about what might be happening to them, wherever. They've been gone for a long time... I want to know what's happening."

"Okay," Max agreed. "Well, who goes? I think that if all five of us leave town at the same time, it'll just make people ask more questions, and we don't really need any more of that at the moment."

"Probably true," Alex admitted. "I know my parents don't exactly want to let me out of their sight any more than they can help. I'd love to hear news from Isabel, but I can wait and get it secondhand... if any of this works."

There was a pause. "Maybe I'd better stay too," Maria volunteered. "My mom hasn't been doing that well adjusting to the big news... it'd be a bad time to tell her I'm going on a road trip I think."

None of the rest of them said anything for a moment. "Well, this could work okay," Max volunteered. "The three of us, and Rath because he could be helpful persuading Lonnie. Will fit well in the J--." He frowned, remembering again that the Jeep was no longer an option. "Fit okay in pretty much any car we want to try. Maria, Alex, and Ava stay here."

"Yeah, for Lonnie to know that Ava's with us would probably do more harm than good," Maria agreed softly.

"I'm pretty sure my parents won't object too loudly to me taking a trip... as long as I promise them I'll be back," Max said with a short laugh. "I could even tell them that I'll be trying to find Isabel, get in touch with her and find out when she'll be coming home, which is all true enough. How about you, Liz??"

"I'm... I'm actually not sure," Liz said after a moment. "But I'd like to try to get permission from them and see what happens. I really would rather be spending the time with you than, well, than the alternative."

"How sweet," Kyle put in. "Don't think my dad will be a problem if I explain a bit about the situation to him, and promise him we'll be careful. I know he's been worried about Michael and Isabel too."

"Alright," Max said. "Any idea when we can leave?"

"Probably tomorrow or the day after," Kyle put in.

Liz shrugged. "Not sure what my parents will say, but I doubt that they'll have a good reason that I have to stick around longer than that."

"Alright, call it an early morning start in a day and a half," Max decided. "That'll give us some time to pack, and Rath time to finish what he can do from here."

Liz nodded, and made a circling gesture in the air with her hand. "Maria and I had probably better be getting back."

They each turned around seperately in the alley and headed back the way they had come, in the same formation turned 'upside down.'

-----------

"Oh, stars in the distance!!" Gird exclaimed as Isabel, Lawnii, and a young Antarian man who Lawnii had recognized carried Michael's unconscious body back into the orbital control room. "What... what happened to him?"

Lawnii waved her hands a little bit in some odd alien gesture and looked to Isabel as if expecting her to answer the question. "Umm... I'm not quite sure -- I didn't see what Michael could see from the Granilith, I was just helping him link into the thing. He oriented, waited a while, and fired twice, and I kind of got the impression that the job was done, so I dropped out of the link. Before I realized what had happened, Michael had changed his firing angle and shot, at least three or four times. By the time we could get to him, he was like this, out cold. I had nearly to pry the key out of his fingers to get the big G back into the shed.

"Hehhm," Gird said, his eyes serious as he examined Michael. "I think he has overreached himself, working with the Granilith... but what you have told me explains a lot. Our sensors here detected that the patrol ship, too, had been destroyed, but not by what agency. I hope Michael has not paid too grievous a price in ridding us of it."

"The... the first ship," Isabel sorted out. "The one that we knew was coming, as opposed to the ship he was SUPPOSED to attack, that came by surprise."

"He attacked both of them," Gird agreed softly.

"So... so is the attack over?" Lawnii interjected.

"Not entirely. Two landing parties are still here on surface, close to the settlement, and we are still in danger from them. However, we need no longer fear bombardment from above, or reinforcements. That's good news at least." He sighed. "Isabel, h-- can you tell how your own powers are balancing?? I would not ask you to risk the same outcome as Michael, but the perimeter guard is down by several people from a fragment of the missile that hit us. You'll be able to assist them, I think."

Everything seemed to be going too quickly for Iz. "Umm... what about Michael? Is he going to be okay??"

"I think so," he assured her. "He will not fare the worse for resting this hour or next. If we need to use a power ritual to help him, we can... but in the middle of this action is not the time. Do not worry, though -- he will recover."

Isabel smiled a little. "Thanks. Okay, next... for this guard duty -- I'm sorry, but what would it involve? Holding a gun and... and shooting at any of the other guys who come too close?"

"No, you would not be using a physical weapon, but joining your mental powers into a group of four and allowing one of the other defenders, more experienced, to use your energy for attack -- or defense."

Isabel paused in thought... group of four?? Well, there was no time to think about it right now. "Just tell me where to go."

----------

By the time the perimiter guardspeople got an order to stand down and Isabel had found her way back into the underlevels of the settlement, Michael had been moved, and it seemed to take her forever to find him, in a small dining room or something that had been converted into a battle infirmary. Just at the same time as she found Michael, lying there with a number of Antarians loosely gathered around his still unconscious body, Iz also caught sight of another face she recognized, Tess, sitting two tables away, cleaning and bandaging the wounds of a tall, muscular blue-skinned alien man.

"Oh, hi Isabel," Lawnii said, startling the hybrid girl as she came up from behind. "Did you hear that we had the all clear??"

"Umm, yes." The remaining Kivarian troops, knowing that they no longer had a home base to retreat to, and not eager to take their chances escaping into the wilderness of this mostly untamed colony world, had surrendered and been taken as captives for the time being. "Umm... not to sound too stupid, but what is *she* doing here??"

"Ummm... well, we needed every pair of hands we could get for triage, and she volunteered to help. I've been helping to keep an eye on Tess, actually. That chain thing on her neck is preventing her from using her powers to attack anyone, or escape, even if she got in into her head to try."

"Um," Isabel muttered, not seeming satisfied by that. However, just at that moment, Isabel was waved over by someone she vaguely remembered, Karteech, the chief medical officer of the settlement. As she stepped closer to Michael, she stiffened in utter horror and shock... his body was covered with an all too familiar pattern of webbing. "He... we have to..."

"We're preparing to use 'Kolcharrin' to initiate an energy transfer," Karteech told her gently. "I realize it looks bad, but this is, I think, a relatively minor syndrome for our people, and Michael should be able to weather in nearly as well. Would have been better if we'd been able to attend to him earlier, I admit, but..."

"This... this has happened to him before," she blurted out. "A year and a half ago. Not from over-using his powers -- but he was exposed to extremely high heat and humidity, for..."

"Oh!" The alien doctor considered. "Yes, that would have the same effect, wouldn't it?"

Isabel nodded. "I... I can take one of the healing stones and help with the transfer," she continued. "If... if I'm not too, too scared or something."

For a second, Karteech seemed like he was about to ask how she knew so much about this process, but evidently thought better of it. Then he looked patiently at her for a long moment. "Perhaps it is better not. The chances of an adverse reaction are probably not that high, but we have plenty of other volunteers to whom Michael is not so dear. Better that way."

"I'll help, if you let me," another voice spoke up. Isabel looked over and glared at Tess. "Seriously... I, I want to help," the young pregnant girl continued. "Not just saying it to get this damn shackle off my neck, because... well, to be honest, what the hell could I do anyway, surrounded by all of you in here? I... I'd just like to be able to give something back as a way of saying sorry for all the crap I've put you and Michael, and Max and the others, through. Honest."

"Remorse comes easy to the girl who's been caught," Isabel muttered.

"Yeah," Tess agreed flatly. "But it doesn't hurt you any for me to ease my conscience a little either, now does it? You still don't owe me anything."

Isabel turned away from Tess... and saw that Karteech was looking at her. "For this, the power of the young new life growing inside her would be a significant asset," he muttered. "It is your choice, I think, but this might increase Michael's chances of reviving without a complication."

She paused a moment, lost in indecision. "Fine, if we can get enough people to stand watch and make sure she doesn't try anything funny." Isabel turned angrily to Tess. "You realize that if you do this, and gods forbid something happens to Michael... the rebels are going to crucify you as soon as the baby is born, right??"

"Yeah, probably, especially if you ask them to," Tess agreed. "But nothing's going to happen. I promise you."

Other participants were quickly rounded up, and watchers, and Isabel spent the entire time glaring at Tess' face, watching for something indicating that she was about to run away, or hurt Michael, or do anything wrong. She didn't notice what was happening to Michael, or even see a single one of the yellow healing stones light up with their own light.

"Isabel? Izzy??" Only after many long seconds did it penetrate that Michael was calling for her. "What... what happened? I feel like crap."

She rushed forward and hugged him through the dust of the disintegrated webbing. "You're a foolish moron, Michael Guerin, but I love you anyway. Don't ever scare me like that again."

It took a little while to explain to Michael what had happened, and what he had done, (he didn't seem to remember anything after zapping the first ship,) and Tess put her chain back on, had it inspected, and went off to help with others who were still recovering from the fighting. Michael's grin when Lawnii told him that the attack had been successfully fought off was a joy to behold.

"Then it's all over?"

"Until the rebels and the next fleet of Kivar's show up, around this time tomorrow," Isabel told him soberly. "And we see if somebody starts shooting."

TO BE CONTINUED...


	7. Chapter 7

Liz rushed, excited, up the Crashdown steps, into her room, grabbed her phone and speed-dialed. After a ring and a half, the line picked up and Max's lazy 'hello?' greeted her.

"I talked them into it," Liz puffed, collapsing into her bed. "Promised them that we weren't running off to have sex or do drugs or anything else they told us about in health class, said I just needed a bit of summertime off with a few of my friends."

She could picture Max smiling in his own room. "Great."

"Did you-know-who tell you where we're going to be going yet??" Liz continued.

"Umm, not exactly. Mid-west coast, and a fairly large city. Portland, maybe, or San Francisco. He's got a few ideas of who we can talk to once we get there to narrow it down."

"Hmmm." Liz considered that. "Well, I just hope that the whole deal works."

"Yeah, me too," Max agreed softly. "So, how was your day otherwise??"

----------

"So... so that's it??" Isabel breathed, near fainting with relief.

"So it would seem," Gird replied, the pleasure somehow perfectly readable on his face though he wasn't smiling, nor were his eyes 'twinkling' as human eyes might.

"When I spoke with the admiral of the second fleet, he seemed to realize that an attack was pointless even before I explained why. Tess, and the baby, can be transferred aboard the Rebel courier ship, which will then disappear beneath its 'cloaking field,' practically impossible to trace. The two of you will be leaving for Earth in the Granilith as soon as its countdown has completed again, and no other ship can match its speed. Given all of that, Kivar's officers don't have any real chance to capture a prize trophy for their supreme leader. They can probably fight through the Rebel warships and blast our settlement, but that won't accomplish anything, and might even prove counterproductive to Kivar if public opinion turns against him."

Michael weighed that from his bed. (A private room for his recovery had been found not long after the energy transfer.) "And there's no way they could get here and snatch us before the Granilith is ready to go??" he asked softly.

"Not really," Gird assured them. "They'd have to fight their way through first."

"And what if there's some other cloaked vessel, in orbit already?" Isabel asked nervously.

"I doubt it," Gird assured her. "Those ships aren't cheap or numerous. And they can't enter the atmosphere with a sub-etheric field going anyway, so we'd see if they were coming to get you."

Michael nodded, satisfied. "Well, I'm feeling better now. Can we see Tess before she leaves? Talk to the people who'll be taking her away?"

"Of course." Gird thought a moment. "How long will you need?"

Michael shared a look with Isabel for several seconds. "Not sure... probably not long. We don't want to delay things, especially if the bad guys might still be coming towards us."

"Well, we were going to bring Tess out onto that wide, flat plain right in front of the settlement, and transfer her to a landing shuttle there. In about an hour. You can be there."

Isabel nodded, Michael too, and sure enough in an hour, there they were. Tess was being led out from the settlement front gateway, guards on either side, the restraining collar still around her neck, but hands and feet unbound. Michael stared at her, possibly for the last time, with profoundly mixed emotions.

"Gird gave me this," he whispered, showing her a tiny little alien gizmo with a purple crystal built into it. "Ultrawave communications transceiver. Once the baby is born, if you want to go anywhere NEAR Earth, you make sure to reach us first using it, and get Max's okay. Otherwise, we'll consider it a declaration of war. Got it??"

Tess nodded, words not coming to her for a moment. When they arrived, she said softly, "Michael, I'll miss you too." He glared. "Okay, strike that last word then," she muttered uncomfortably.

"Take care of my nephew... while you can at least," Isabel said, also sounding undecided about what emotional tone she should have. "I kinda wish things could have been different."

"Me too, and I'm so sorry," Tess replied. "Especially... about the whole thing with Alex, and what I tried to do when I realized he was dead. I wasn't trying to kill him, you have to believe that."

Isabel considered it for a moment. "No," she shot back, her voice full of grief and a little revulsion. "You were only trying to violate his mind one more time, taking the true memories out of his brain, to cover up your own dirty secret. I don't think that's any better than being an intentional murderer."

"I wasn't *trying* to take him away from you," Tess insisted.

"Not Alex, no. Not until you would inevitably decide that you needed me to be where he couldn't come and follow. Just stop talking to me now, Tess." Tess's face quirked as she turned away slightly from the other hybrid girl.

Meanwhile, an impressively uniformed Antarian had stepped forward from the waiting shuttle. "Prince Michael, Princess Isabel??"

"Umm..." Michael once again shot a bemused look at his oldest friend. Isabel nodded back slightly. "Something like that." He opened his mouth to ask who the officer was, then shut it again because he didn't know the proper formula for asking, if there was one, without seeming rude.

He didn't need to. "Commander Vellissar. I have a message for you, and for Max Evans, from Queen Alinda."

Isabel gasped slightly. "And Alinda would be... she was Zan and Vilandra's mother??"

Vellissar nodded crisply. "Yes. The message goes as follows:" He took a subtle breath before beginning to recite in a ritualized accent of the Antarian language. "'From the secondhand news that has reached me, it is clear that the three of you are both less, and more, than my dear children reborn, but I would still be honored to call you family.'" Isabel squeaked low again, holding tight to Michael in the excitement of this missive.

"'Isabel, Michael, my heart is heavy with the realization that we will not be able to meet at this time, but the fact that you were able to come so near will buoy my aged spirits for many more orbits of the worlds. I will be among those waiting at - a secure location, to meet with Tess, and to assist in the birth and care of her baby. I'm not sure if he will count as my grandson or great-grandson, but he will be kin, and that is the important thing.'"

"'To Max, I ask that you carry all my love and all my best wishes, (after taking first your own due portions, that is,) to sustain him through any trials or challenges that his life may bring in the coming years. The rebel army that is still loyal to what your father stood for is trying to keep our war from spreading to disrupt your new lives in this time, but the usurper hates that your names live on, in this fashion, and that the chance to live again after death has come to any of his enemies. Be warned that he may attack on Earth again.'"

"'Isabel, Max: I am aware that you were taken in as 'orphans' by a childless Earth couple, who have cared for you as if you were their own children and know nothing of the unearthly side to your nature. My gratitude goes out to these people, to Phillip and Diane Evans of Roswell, New Mexico, for taking care of you when I could not. You will probably not be able to pass my thanks on to them, but remember to give them your own. I know that if I were in their place, I would want to be told the truth, and would love my children no less for hearing it. The circumstances may make that impossible, but I wanted to mention my opinion here in this letter.'"

"'Blessings of the powers of creation be upon both of you on your return home, and on those you love who have not left Earth. May the day of our meeting draw near. Alinda.'"

"Cool," Isabel whispered, wondering if she might, after all, pass on the thanks of her 'birth mother' to the only parents she had ever truly known. Michael was smiling just as much as she was, and had pulled out the destiny book translation from one of his pockets.

"Could you go over that again?? I'd hate to misremember some of it when we try to tell Max, or to be unable to explain one of the Antarian turns of phrase, so maybe we can transcribe it all into English."

The fleet man smiled patiently and went over the entire missive in small detail, he and Gird explaining little bits as they went. By the time they were done, Tess had been long past escorted into the shuttle.

"Gird has given me the instructions for communicating via that ultraceiver as well, Princess," Vellissar murmured once they were done. "Someone will be sure to contact you once the child is born."

Isabel and Michael both thanked him for that. "Is there any reply you wish conveyed back to Alinda??" That stunned Michael a bit, whose head was spinning a little bit with how much things had changed, so quickly.

"Tell her... tell her that we appreciate her kindness and the blessings she has sent," Isabel started uncertainly, "and that we want to meet her as well. For now, though, our place is back on Earth." That seemed to cover it, and she shrugged uncomfortably."

"Very... well. We should probably make ready to launch now." With one more respectful bow, he went back into the shuttle, and its hatch closed with a dreadfully final clang.

----------

"Alright, alright, I'll do it," the tall young woman with the bright shocks of electric pink and blue in her short dark blonde hair said, adding in a soft growl. "'Cause clearly, you ain't gonna stop buggin' me until I do, huh?"

"Pretty much, yeah," Kyle answered. They had finally found Lonnie near the edge of a wide, open city park near downtown Portland, after several days of searching.

"Alright, well, I'll need to sit down and concentrate," the dupe girl muttered, and stalked off towards an unoccupied bench. Kyle, Max, Liz, and Rath followed. Lonnie lowered herself catlike to one end of the seat, closed her eyes, and remained there for several minutes, as still as a statue. Finally she opened her eyes and looked around again, searching for Max's face. In an instant she found it.

"Sorry, I can't contact them," Lonnie said softly.

"Try again," Kyle growled menacingly.

She laughed shortly and fixed the human boy with as withering a stare as she could manage. "You don't get it, little V. Michael and Isabel, I can't reach them because they're back in warp space again. They left that planet in the Granilith. Should be back in Roswell in about a week and a half. Congratulations."

Liz jumped. It seemed to sudden. "What about... about Tess? The baby? How can we be sure you're telling us the truth?"

Lonnie shrugged. "It's true enough, and how you can tell that is up to you. Why did you want me to act as a gobetween anyway, if you couldn't trust what I said??"

"Well, partly I guess we were hoping you would get a message that was clearly from them," Max said honestly. "Something that you'd never think to fake, because you definitely don't understand either of them. But I guess half a loaf is better than nothing. Tess?"

"Umm.." Lonnie frowned, as if going over the impressions she had managed to get from that far distant planet. "She's in transit too, but a different ship, different destination. Heavy armed guard to the secret Rebel base, I guess."

Max and Liz shared a look. "Then everything's going to be okay I guess," Liz said slowly. "As long as..."

"I think she's telling the truth," Rath spoke up. "Unless she's managed to change her 'tell' entirely since the last time we ran together, and I kinda doubt that. If they don't show up within two weeks, then you can start worrying again."

"Yeah," Lonnie said with a crisp nod. "And don't come running to me every time you need to pass along a message back home, 'kay?? I gave you this one more or less free, but it could get old real fast."

"You owe me a little more than this, Landra," Max said, his own eyes at least as dangerous as Lonnie's. "But we won't try to find you again unless there's great need I think."

"Alright, I guess that'll do for now." And Lonnie got up and stalked away from them all.

"Well, it's too late to head back now," Kyle suggested. "Shouldn't have to look too far to find a cheap motel though."

"Yeah, sounds okay," Liz agreed, then made a big sigh. "But I'm gonna have to get my own room - I promised my mom."

----------

(Nine days later.)

Sitting up on his bed in the middle of the night, Max pressed the hook button on his cordless phone to get a new dial tone, and then rang through again. It took five rings before there was an answer.

"Uhhh... hello??"

"Maria, it's Max. Sorry for cal--"

"Max, it's... what, it's around three in the morning, right??"

"Yes, and they're about to arrive home!"

The words took a little while to register with the girl on the other end of the line. "Michael and Isabel? Right now??"

"In an hour I think, or maybe a bit less. I've already called Alex and Liz, and I'm going to ring Kyle as soon as we're done."

"But... but how can you know, Max??"

"It... it was a kind of a dream. I can't explain how I know that it's real, but trust me when I say that I'm certain."

"Uhh, okay." Maria crawled out of bed and tried to think of what she should wear for an occasion like this. "Was Isabel dreamwalking you, maybe?"

"Not sure... it wasn't exactly like that, but the fact that she's still in warp space and I'm not might have distorted the dreamwalk effect. I'll pick up Liz and... you can get Alex and Kyle, right?"

"Umm, yeah... where are we going? Where the pod chamber was?? The door there is ruined, and it'll take us about an hour just to get to the site..."

"Um." Max thought for a moment. "No, it's not going to be back there. Rendezvous at the south city limits sign, route 285."

"Err, okay. I'll be there as soon as I can."

----------

Max led the way off the road, about fifteen miles south of town, and maybe a hundred yards away from the late-night traffic. When he parked the Jeep, Maria pulled her mom's Jetta up next to it and pulled out. "What the heck is this place?"

"Nowhere very special," Max admitted. "Someplace that Isabel, Michael and I used to come when we were younger."

"And you think that they're going to bring the Granilith back here??" Liz asked, confusion and tiredness evident in her voice.

"Well, it's more convenient than the Maideckezne rocks were," Max pointed out. "Not such a long drive, and no reason for anyone to look for it here."

"But there's nowhere to hide it here!!" Kyle burst out. "No handy underground vault or anything. People are going to notice a giant alien cone that big - they might even be able to see it from the highway."

"No, I don't think so - the Granilith will take care of hiding itself, with Isabel and Michael's help." As Maria looked over at Max's face in the darkness, she could see he was smiling in the darkness. "I always wondered how the protectors, on the run and without much time, had managed to arrange all of the defensive features in the pod chamber and so on. I think I've figured that out now. They used the Granilith itself to create the entire installation. Hollow out the rocks, install the pods, create the handprint door lock, and the whole deal. With the power available to that thing, it wouldn't have taken longer than a moment."

"So you mean, they're going to..." Liz started.

"Hey, look!!" Alex called out. Far above them, a shooting star was growing brighter, moving along the sky only slightly. And suddenly Maria realized that whatever it was, it was about to land pretty much on top of them.

"Max, are you sure they aren't going to..."

And then, so quickly, it was all over. The wave of light, of sound and horrible pressure, landed maybe fifty feet away from where they were standing and crashed down into the ground. And then the ground began to move, filling in the circular impact hole, then lifted itself into a gentle desert hill. And mere steps away from where Max stood, finally, a sheet of solid bedrock slid away to reveal stairs, lit by some unearthly light. Up the stairs walked two familiar figures in unfamiliar clothes. Michael was wearing slightly baggy pirate-like black pants and a white shirt that was apparently made of a single sash of material wrapped around and around. Isabel was lovely in a long and simple blue tunic dress.

"Well, you guys sure know how to make an entrance," Kyle joked.

"Isabel?" Liz and Max moved aside, knowing that the person who had said her name had pre-eminent rights on the reunion. Isabel stared at him as if she couldn't believe what she was seeing, which wasn't too surprising under the circumstances.

"Okay, I know that I've imagined him before," she muttered. "Do... do you guys see, umm... see Al--"

"YES!" Liz shouted out too loud in her excitement. "Sorry, but yeah, Isabel, he's really here and it's really Alex. Kind of a long story about what really happened, and we can tell it all to you in great and gory detail, but..."

"Welcome home, darling," Alex said, smiling shyly, and impulsively, he stepped towards her with his arms spread. Isabel nodded, a tear falling from each of her eyes, and Alex swept her up in an enthusiastic embrace and kissed her.

"Okay, come on, at least give us a hint," Michael complained, as he gave Maria her own reunion hug. "Rhymes with..."

"Bath," Max quipped, waving to the other people he had driven here in the Jeep, who had hung back in the shadows thus far and not said a word.

"Umm, I'm not sure I can claim any credit for why Alex is still alive," Rath mumbled. "I'm kinda the reason you thought he'd been bumped off, though. If it weren't for Ava's mental shield, he woulda been."

Isabel pushed Alex partly away, (though still keeping one of her arms around him and vice versa,) to look at the dupes. "You did this? But why??"

"We were trying to stop Tess from getting away with something awful," Ava muttered nervously. "Since Alex is alive, you two are back home with the Granilith, I kinda think that we did -- right??"

"Umm, yeah, I guess so," Michael muttered, still trying to come to terms that Tess' "murder" of Alex had apparently been falsified.

"Um, speaking of Tess," Max said softly. "What happened to her? To the baby??"

"The baby is fine, Max," Isabel assured him. "Tess has been delivered into the care of the Rebel army, who are taking her to... to Zan and Vilandra's mother, queen Alinda. She's going to make sure your son gets born okay, and take care of him afterwards. Tess -- Tess isn't going to be allowed to raise him herself."

"Oh, and we've got this," Michael said, holding up a little alien doodad. "Communicator circuit... you might even be able to use it to talk to Grandma alien herself. We've got a message from her too."

Now it was Max's turn to have her head spin. "You mean... my real alien mother... did you talk to her?"

"Nah, didn't get a chance, it was all secondhand," Michael replied. "Oh, and there was a pretty kickass space battle too. Take my advice, though -- don't think of Alinda as your real mother. It confuses things, and it's not really accurate anyway, if you're not the same person as Zan was..." he looked at Liz standing close to Max, "which I think you believe now. Call Zan your father, via DNA donorship, and that makes Alinda your grandmother and the little one's great-grandmother." Max nodded.

"I... I can't believe that I have you back," Isabel whispered, holding Alex close as they started to get back into the cars, (with Rath perched in the back of the Jeep so that all nine of them would fit.) "I thought that you were dead, and that some part deep inside me would always be missing you. How did I get lucky enough to get a second chance??"

"I dunno," Alex admitted. "I was thinking the same thing... that it could so easily have been the real me in that coffin, dead for keeps." He brushed a lock of hair behind her ear and kissed Isabel's cheek as they got into the back seat of the Jetta. "The only thing I can think of is sometimes, life gives you a break."

----------

Michael relaxed on the loveseat in his living room, his arms around Maria. Reoccupying the apartment had been easy enough, with the landlord placated not long after he'd left -- Michael had taken little other than the clothes he'd been wearing when he left, so there wasn't even any moving things back in that needed to be done. Of course, in just a few days the rent would come due once again, and Michael hadn't been earning his usual wage at the Crashdown, but they'd find some way to come up with the cash, he was sure.

"So Liz really thought that Rath was me, again??" he said, smiling. "All the way to their hideout, until she saw Ava??"

"Umm, yeah," Maria replied softly. "So did I, for a few seconds. In Liz's defense, well -- we were all waiting for you guys to come back, not sure of when or how it might happen or how much notice we'd get. And Rath has been dressing and acting very differently from he did last winter. He wasn't a perfect imitation of you, but he was close enough that Liz didn't stop to consider the possibilities for a few minutes."

"Okay, okay, I wasn't mocking her or anything," Michael insisted. "It's just a kinda funny situation." He sighed. "And Alex didn't die after all. I never woulda guessed that one, but I'm relieved. He's a great guy, and deserves only the best."

"I know," Maria agreed.

"So, ummm..." Michael brushed away a sweep of her lustrous brown hair back and kissed Maria on the neck. "Have I mentioned just how much I missed you?"

"Not as much as I missed you," Maria replied, and blinked when Michael cocked his head at this reaction. "Well, I had more time to miss you, with the time distortion effect and all. To you, it's only been a week, while more than a month has passed for us poor little Earthlings."

"A very eventful week, I have to insist, but the point is taken," Michael admitted, kissing her ear.

"Ummm--" Maria suddenly stood up out of the seat, which almost made Michael lose his balance and fall over into the space she's been occupying, but he caught himself at the last moment.

"Err, what is it, baby?"

"There's something... something I have to tell you," Maria mumbled. "Not quite sure how to say it, so here goes. Tess isn't the only one who got pregnant with a part-alien baby."

"Uh, she isn't??" Michael asked. It was a few seconds before he remembered their last night together before the Granilith was launched. "You... you're... we're going to have a baby?" His life passed before Michael's eyes.

"No -- gotcha!" she crowed. "Sorry, I just made all of that up. No baby."

"Oh, uh, okay." Michael breathed deeply. "I think 'pheww' doesn't nearly cover it."

Maria smiled and dropped herself back into Michael's tender embrace.

THE END.


End file.
